Troy University in Alabama is looking for adjunct faculty with tabletop experience to teach online Game Design and Development classes.

Along with several sales and distribution positions, Learning Resources has an opening for a Marketing Coordinator to handle social media and influencer campaigns and support trade shows.

At Educational Insights in Gardena, California, there are opportunities for an Associate Marketing Manager, to manage PR, social media, and the company’s customer loyalty program, and a Product Manager, to lead conceptualization, manage vendor relationships, and collaborate with functional teams as required in the development of new products.

ThinkFun in Alexandria, Virginia has an opening for a Human Resources Manager.

Wizards of the Coast in Renton, Washington is recruiting for:

• Principal Game Designer, requiring significant experience and a passion for Magic, The Gathering.
• Creative Lead to help grow the company’s digital business (Magic, D&D, and Avalon Hill).
• Director of Communications and Publicity, skilled at both corporate and brand-level communications.
• Product Marketing Manager, supporting regional development and localization for MtG.
• Principal Game Designer for digital publishing, requiring at least 8 years of AAA experience.

Tabletop Tycoon in Londonderry, New Hampshire needs an Accounting & Bookkeeping Lead. Responsibilities include developing budgets, reviewing invoices, and managing workflows.

Games Workshop has many openings in sales and retail, also one for a Trainee Citadel Miniatures Designer and a one for a Visual Merchandising Manager. The former will sculpt minis. The latter will create product displays.

An unnamed United States board game manufacturer is looking for a UK Marketing Director, among who’s responsibilities will be managing two PR companies and an advertising agency.

Bezier Games is in need of an experienced, full-time Social Media Manager to generate buzz. The position is based in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Renegade Game Studios is seeking a Development Coordinator to manage the playtesting process from its San Diego office. The company is also looking for a Video Editor to help with 1-2 projects per month.

Atlas Games has an opening for a Marketing Coordinator in Duluth, Minnesota. The successful candidate must have industry knowledge, as well as skills in writing, editing, analytics, and task management.

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The St. Louis Chess Club and World Chess Hall of Fame has openings for a Gallery Attendant, a Retail Associate, and a Graphic Designer. The last includes significant management responsibilities, such as assigning tasks to other staff, selecting vendors, and representing the organization to the public.

Modiphius Entertainment has openings in its London office for a Finance Assistant (full or part-time), a Marketing & Communications Manager, and a Logistics Assistant. The Finance Assistant will handle bookkeeping, accounts payable, and account receivable. The Marketing & Communications Manager will promote the company’s products to distributors, reviewers, and customers. The Logistics Assistant (or Manager) will require experience with imports and exports and freight arrangements. The company is also looking for a Freelance Layout Artist to work remotely.

Gen Con is looking for a temporary Administrative Assistant for the Events Team. The job starts in February and lasts until August. Location is Seattle.

Atlas Games is looking for a Marketing Coordinator at its office in Duluth. The position requires knowledge of marketing analytics and the hobby game industry.

American Sign Language Proficient RPG Game Masters are wanted by RPG Therapeutics to run games in Spokane, Washington.

A full-time Chess Coach with at least an International Master rating is wanted by The University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to training the team, the Coach will also be responsible for recruiting students at international tournaments.

PSI is recruiting for a Vendor Account Coordinator to manage relationships with board game publishers “leading to the development of customer delight.”

The Field Museum in Chicago is recruiting for an After School Game Designer. It’s a temporary part-time position for the spring program in which teens will create board and card games about freshwater ecosystems.

Good Games in Indianapolis is planning to expand its e-commerce business and needs an Online Sales Manager.

Galileo Learning runs a summer camp for elementary school-aged children in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, where it needs a Game Design Instructor.

STAR is looking to hire a Dungeons & Dragons Teacher for elementary after-school programs in Culver City, California.

Hasbro is looking to hire a Contract Graphic Designer to work on the Transformers TCG.

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Cam Banks’ Magic Vacuum Design Studio has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Cortex Prime, the newest version of the Cortex Plus system. Cam was the lead designer and developer of the Cortex Plus system, which was used in the Smallville, Leverage, Firefly, and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying games. Two different books are offered, a 152+ page roleplaying game, and a basic system reference guidebook. A $10 pledge gets you pdf versions of both books in January while physical copies begin at $25, arriving in April of 2018, with a hardcover Cortex Prime book only available during this campaign starting at $35.

Posthuman Studios has announced a second edition of Eclipse Phase, launching a funding campaign last week. The science fiction roleplaying game is set in a quite advanced future: your mind can inhabit different bodies, death is something that can be easily avoided, and need is alleviated. However, transhumanity has fled Earth following a war against artificial intelligences, dispersing thoughout the solar system (and beyond) for survival. The new edition features faster character creation and resleeving (switching from body to body), an updated ruleset for quicker and simpler play at the table, and a redesigned layout to minimize flipping through the book to find relevant rules. Already funded, a $60 pledge gets you a copy of the physical book around October; a pdf-only reward is available down at a $20 pledge.

The story of Brass is a long and troubled tale, but finally Brass is being reprinted in an updated version from Roxley Games. Brass, now titled Brass: Lancashire, is part of a funding campaign that also is producing a sequel game, Brass: Birmingham. Both games have updated artwork (the best art I’ve seen in any edition of Brass, frankly). Lancashire features updated 2- and 3-player rules to “provide an experience more consistent with [the 4-player gameplay]”. Birmingham has a dynamic board setup with new canal and rail scoring (plus an evocative nightscape map). Crazily over-funded and with several upgrade stretch goals already unlocked, you can get either one of the games for about $60 or both as a reward for backing at the $100 level. (Funding levels are in CAD.) Final versions of the games are expected in January of 2018.

Back when I was heading up a rather large monthly game day event, it seemed that every third attendee was a budding game designer. Gameplaywright and Atlas Games are creating a great product for these designers: The White Box. This project comes with components for prototyping and development, a book of essays about how to make games, and a gift certificate for The Game Crafter, a small press board game printer that is commonly used for prototyping. A $30 pledge gets you a copy of The White Box in October. Higher level pledges get you a consultation on your game design.

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Attending PAX East and want to know who is exhibiting at what tables? We’ve been given the list of exhibitors in the tabletop hall, which currently do not show up in the Guidebook app, the only version of the program and show’s floorplan available.

The tabletop booths will be along the right (north) edge of the space, near the skybridge. From the main Queue Room entrance on up to the Lenovo Legion PC Room, the following companies will have a presence in the tabletop hall:

• Gamewright, Q-Workshop, Asmodee NA
• Compleat Strategist (local game store), Steve Jackson Games
• Battleground Games & Hobbies (local game store), Level Up Dice, Fun to 11, Tectonic Craft Studios
• CMON, Wyrmwood Gaming
• Burning Wheel, Japanime/Global Games Distribution, Greenbriar Games
• Modern Myths NY (“local” game store), Armor Class 10 Shirts
• Pandemonium Games (local game store), Crit Success, Dragoon/Lay Waste Games
• Atlas Games, United States Professional Mahjong League
• Drinking Quest, Aviary Games, SFR
• AdMagic
• Greater Than Games
• Foam Brain Games (“local” game store)

Although the PAX 2017 program book that appears in the Guidebook app doesn’t break down the tabletop hall, PAX’s Tabletop Manager has said that this year a detailed map of the tabletop area will appear in the program.

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Atlas Games was showing off Three Cheers for Master throughout the day at their booth. In the game, you’re trying to build up the largest stack of minions without them killing each other and causing the tower to fall. As foreminion, you’ll be able to keep things in line…kind of. The art in this one is really cool, and the hectic tower collapses are hilarious.

Also new at the booth was Fast & Fhtagn (don’t ask me how to pronounce that), a sequel to Cthulhu 500. It’s a card game of Cthulhu mythos racing with all sorts of sanity destroying obstacles.

I actually have copies of both of these in my review queue, so keep an eye out for those in the upcoming weeks.

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Gloom: Fairytale makes a lot of sense when you sit back and think out it. Create custom collections from some of your favorite fairy tale characters which, of course, are miserable mirror images of what you know. Have the most miserable lot when the Unhappy Endings occur to win the game.

Gloom: Fairytale is a stand-alone game, and doesn’t require the original Gloom to play. It’ll be out in May for $24.95, and supports 2-4 players ages 13+.

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Tuesday at the GAMA Trade show, Renegade Game Studios and Steve Jackson Games announced a patnership to produce Munchkin Trading Cards. To be clear, these cards, available in the fall, are not a game, just trading cards of the kind with images on one side and character facts on the other. However, in addition to the typical sticker and autograph cards, inserted in to random packs will be actual unique playtest cards from the Munchkin game development team, new one-off rule cards, and original hand drawn sketch cards (at least one per box of 24 packs). While the total number of cards in a pack has not yet been set, MSRP per pack should be $3.50.

Also announced at the show were Munchkin Gloom from Atlas Games, Munchkin Smash Up from AEG, and Munchkin Zombies Walking Dead and Munchkin The Nightmare Before Christmas from USAopoly. The last is an October release and the rest are set for Gen Con.

Coming direct from Steve Jackson are Munchkin Steampunk (a hobby channel exclusive through December), Star Munchkin 3 (with a single extra card, for a total of 113, only in the first print run), and Munchkin Stocking Stuffers (a bundle of five Christmas-themed packs plus some gift stickers).

And possibly in the works are Munchkin vending machines, either for game cards or for tchotchkes, like mini figures and dice. At the moment, no concrete steps have yet been taken for these. However, the retailers at the show voiced strong support.

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From Worthington Games and designer Lew Pulsipher, Sea Kings is a game about Vikings that involves players in exploration, trade, and diplomacy in addition to raiding and pillaging. It’s also supposed to play in just 30-45 minutes with 2-6 players.

Yashima: Legend of the Kami Masters is a card-driven tactical battle game with a fantastical martial arts theme. Each game, players create custom battle decks by combining a character deck with a spirit deck.

Feng Shui, the cinematic martial-arts action roleplaying game, is making a comeback. And while Atlas Games’ project for Feng Shui 2 is already funded more than 10 times over, jumping on the bandwagon will help with additional stretch goals.

Another action-oriented RPG but one that’s supposed to let me play out The Rockford Files is Spirit of 77. Monkeyfun Studios is building this 1970s homage on the Apocalypse World engine.

The first of what Storyception Games hopes will be a series all sharing a single epic-scale setting, Galactic Arena is a science-fiction game of gladiatorial combat. Other products planned by the company include a card game, roleplaying game, and dice game—all part of the Apocalypse Universe.

Bomb Squad is a real-time cooperative game that uses cards but doesn’t allow players to see their own hands. Just after launching the project for it, Tasty Minstrel Games discovered and licensed a similarly-themed game, Bomb Squad Academy. The company will include this second game for free with the first, if a significant stretch goal is reached.

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