21 Sep
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, CCGs, Electronic Games, Miniatures, Modern Board Games, RPGs, War Games
Hasbro is partnering with Epic Games to produce Fortnite-based toys and games. Of course, there’s to be a Fortnite Monopoly (due this fall) but also other unspecified games.
Shinobi 7 announced acquisition of the Conan license for tabletop games. Two products are planned. The first, a miniatures game via Kickstarter project. The second, a direct-to-retail card game.
With a license from Sony Interactive, Steamforged Games is pursuing plans for a miniatures-heavy Horizon Zero Dawn board game via Kickstarter. Pledges already total more than $1 million, though Steamforged estimates delivery not until March 2020.
Things from the Flood is a just-launched Kickstarter RPG project that’s a sequel to Tales from the Loop and based on another of Simon Stålenhag’s art books. The new one from Free League Publishing is more grim and bleak than its predecessor.
Coming to Kickstarter on the 1st of October is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay from River Horse.
Then scheduled for November 13th is Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice from Triton Noir. The company promises a cooperative miniatures game focused on stealth mechanisms.
WizKids recently announced a licensing arrangement with WWE. The company will add WWE wrestling personalities to HeroClix and Dice Masters and create WWE board games.
Available now from WizKids is Star Trek Galactic Enterprises, a game in which you play as Ferengi.
Also available now at retail is Munchkin Starfinder. It’s the Munchkin grab-the-loot card game from Steve Jackson Games, based on the Starfinder sci-fi RPG from Paizo Publishing.
Next up for Munchkin is Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 based on the property from Games Workshop. I love the meta of this previewed card, Unpainted.
But Steve Jackson isn’t the only company with a new Warhammer 40,000 license. Devir has made a racing game, Gretchinz, out of the property. WizKids has adapted Warhammer 40K to Dice Masters in Battle for Ultramar. Ulisses did Wrath & Glory, a Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game. And USAopoly has made Warhammer 40,000 Monopoly.
Based on Warhammer Age of Sigmar, PlayFusion recently launched Champions, a collectible card game with an online play option. A non-collectible card game, Warhammer Doomseeker is available from Ninja Division.
EN Publishing, under license from Rebellion, is launching a Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD roleplaying game on Kickstarter.
IDW will ship to retail this coming February Nickelodeon Splat Attack!, as well as an expansion, Reptar Rampage. The game represents a food fight between teams of characters from various Nickelodeon shows, including Spongebob Squarepants, Hey Arnold!, Rugrats, and Invader Zim.
IDW also signed on with Toei Animation for a series of Dragon Ball games. The first two are due in stores this holiday season. Dragon Ball Super: Heroic Battle has players flicking tokens at each other, while Dragon Ball Z: Over 9000 is supposed to provide a more strategic gameplay experience. In 2019 (after a planned Kickstarter campaign), IDW will release a Dragon Ball Z miniatures game.
Coming this fall from USAopoly is the Dragon Ball Z Power Up Board Game in 3D. Also scheduled to deliver soon is a new Disney Chess Set celebrating 90 years of Mickey Mouse. Available now is one celebrating 25 years of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas. The company’s latest Monopoly games include Five Nights at Freddy’s Monopoly, Ren & Stimpy Monopoly, and BoJack Horseman Monopoly.
Looney Labs recently released Mary Engelbreit Loonacy, a matching card game with the artwork of Mary Engelbreit.
Dog Might Games is now making officially licensed Vampire: The Masquerade dice trays, storyteller screens, and storage boxes, each with a choice of clan symbol. Orders ship with exclusive V5 loresheets tied to the new Geek & Sundry show, LA by Night.
Elderwood Academy is taking preorders for a Vampire: The Masquerade Spellbook gaming box made from walnut and leather. It also ships with LA by Night loresheets.
28 Sep
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, CCGs, Miniatures, Modern Board Games, RPGs, War Games
To support its fast-growing catalog, Renegade Game Studios seeks a Localization Coordinator (in Europe, to support European partners), a Marketing Coordinator (in North America, to support brand-building and social media), and a Game Producer (in San Diego, to push the development of new products).
In addition to a number of jobs related to its digital products and a few art-related positions (contract and in-house), Wizards of the Coast is recruiting for a Principal Product Designer. This job involves overseeing R&D design for Magic: The Gathering. Responsibilities include managing all aspect of a MtG block, contributing to strategic development and decision-making, and otherwise supporting the MtG brand.
Two positions are open at Paizo. One is for a Game Developer “to take responsibility for the creation, revision, and editing of content for… the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder, and associated product lines.” The other is for a Customer Service Representative to answer inquiries and troubleshoot problems.
Pelgrane Press has an opening for an Administrative Assistant but it’s no mere secretarial position. The job involves working with directly with customers, online and in-person, as well as managing supply-chain issues such as print buying and tracking warehouse inventories. Pelgrane is headquartered in the U.K. but remote work is OK. The work is estimated at 25 hours per week for a salary of US$1,500 per month (about $14/hr, no benefits).
Games for Change (G4C), the organization that promotes driving real-world change using games, has three openings: Senior Director (an executive leadership position), Community Manager (a part-time but front-line, point-of-contact between G4C and the whole range of its stakeholders), and Operations Manager (also part-time, and responsible for office and financial management, and maintaining institutional knowledge). All three are based out of New York City.
Ceaco (Gamewright) is looking for a Stock Room Assistant, part-time in Newton, Massachusetts.
At Lost Battalion Publishing in Upperco, Maryland there are openings for a full-time Graphic Designer and a part-time Game Manufacturing Technician.
29 May
Posted by David Miller as Card Games, Electronic Games, Miniatures, Modern Board Games, War Games
Jaipur, Asmodee’s head-to-head, set-collecting card game about trade caravans in India, is now available on mobile (Android, iOS). It can be played against three levels of AI or against another live player online.
CMON has a new companion app for Zombicide: Black Plague. Among other features, the app manages the zombie spawning deck, helps with inventory maintenance, and tracks experience and skill options. It also synchronizes over a network to track all players’ game states.
As announced by Paizo, two digital Pathfinder games are in the works. One, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, is a computer RPG and is being developed by Owlcat Games. In it, players start out as adventurers but are able to claim the lands they explore and, thus, carve out their own kingdoms. The other, Pathfinder Duels, is a digital collectible card game based on the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path and is scheduled for release in September. It’s being developed by 37Games.
Just released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is Bestiary 6. This volume presents over 200 new monsters, including demigods, kaiju, animal companions, playable character races, and templates. The hardcover retails for $45, the PDF (later this month) for $10.
With the launch date for Paizo’s Starfinder Roleplaying Game approaching this summer, the company has revealed some additional detail regarding the products being released. Starfinder is a science-fantasy game based on the Pathfinder RPG, set in space, and compatible but stand-alone.
The initial slate of Starfinder releases scheduled for Gen Con will include a Core Rulebook ($60), GM Screen ($20), and Player Character Folio ($10). Also available at the same time will be the first part of a Starfinder Adventure Path, Incident at Absalom Station ($23), as well as the usual adventure path accessories, a pawn collection ($25) and flip mats ($15-20). The core rulebook runs 560 pages and includes several new races, seven classes (technomancer, mechanic, soldier, envoy, operative, mystic, and solarion), science-fantasy equipment, spells, and rules for starship construction and combat.
Following in September will be Starfinder Condition Cards ($13). In October will be Starfinder Alien Archive ($40) with rules for both creatures as adversaries and creatures as player-characters.
Paizo also has in the works a Starfinder organized play program. The Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild will be separate from but similar to the Pathfinder Society—the major difference being that Starfinder characters will be able to be members of more than one faction at a time, sort of like multi-classing.
To accommodate third-party products, Paizo has already published a Starfinder Compatibility License. It’s also licensed Syrinscape to produce official Starfinder sound-effects and is working with Ninja Division on Starfinder prepainted miniatures.
Paizo Publishing is licensing out the Pathfinder RPG for third-party virtual tabletop applications. The company has singed deals with two VTT providors, Mesa Mundi for D20PRO and Smite Works for Fantasy Grounds, and is soon expected to sign with Roll20.
The new licensing arrangements will allow the companies to incorporate the full Pathfinder RPG ruleset, as well as Pathfinder adventure paths and modules, artwork included. Material is expected to start showing up on these services early next year.
Pathfinder Worldscape is a new fantasy crossover comic series from Dynamite and Paizo. Appearing in the comics alongside Pathfinder iconic heroes Valeros, Seoni, Merisiel, and Kyra will be sword & sorcery characters Red Sonja, John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, and others.
Each issue includes a pull-out, miniatures-scale encounter map depicting a location from the comic’s story, as well as an appendix with supplementary material for the Pathfinder RPG. In issue #1 (available now), that’s stats for Red Sonja and details on her sword-devil archetype. For issue #2 (in a couple of weeks), there’ll be stats for the green Martians of Barsoom and rules for radium weapons.
As a way to support the venues hosting Pathfinder Society events, Paizo is instituting an in-game purchasing program for the Roleplaying Guild. Participants who show their GM a receipt for purchases made that same day from the host venue—game products from a retail host, snacks from a community center refreshment stand, or whatever—will earn special in-game benefits for all players at their table. The benefits provide additional healing, allow extra rolls for gold, and make characters more durable. And those benefits scale with higher spending. For example, with $10 of spending, characters get +5 to constitution for the purpose of determining the hit point damage required to kill them. The bonus jumps to +10 constitution at a $50 spend.
Just announced by Paizo is a new science-fantasy roleplaying game, Starfinder. Unfortunately, it won’t be until Gen Con 2017 that the core rulebook will be available but after that there will be monthly adventure path releases containing rules, setting information, and monsters in addition to the adventure.
Paizo described Starfinder as “based on the Pathfinder universe and rules, but complete and standalone… backward compatible, so you can still use all those Pathfinder RPG bestiaries, but will feature all sorts of new classes, races, equipment, and other elements uniquely suited to our far-future setting.” The setting is Golarion transported to space with faster-than-light travel alongside magic, laser-rifles and zero-edge swords, an AI deity and the centrally important Absalom space station.
Paizo noted in its announcement that “the size and scope of the new game make a full public playtest infeasible.”
Trapdoor Technologies’ Playbook iPad app is a comprehensive roleplaying game companion system with modules for players to create and manage their characters, game-masters to track encounters and share resources, and everyone to trade messages. Previously available for Pathfinder on a limited basis (using just the Pathfinder Reference Document), Playbook will soon benefit from a partnership with Paizo that is supposed to see the eventual integration of “the games’s complete rule set, artwork, connection with Pathfinder Society Organized Play events, and the extensive library of Pathfinder adventures.” Playbook for Pathfinder is scheduled for release by the end of June.