Steve Jackson's Blog, page 388

April 15, 2015: Munchkin Messenger Bag On Warehouse 23

Up until now the Munchkin Messenger Bag has been available only on Amazon. But no more! Now you can buy the Messenger Bag on Warehouse 23! It comes with enough storage compartments to hold a wide variety of  Munchkin goodies, and it even comes with some exclusive  Munchkin cards!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: All You Need Is More Trouble And Friends To Backstab



And that is just what you will get from Munchkin Quest 2: Looking For Trouble . This expansion comes with 2 more pawns, level counters, and dice sets. Giving you everything needed to throw two more friends under the bus! The fun doesn't stop there. More monsters, rooms, loot, and curses as well as all new Traps and passageways that pay you to use them! Grab a copy from Warehouse 23 today.

April 16, 2015: Quest Night: Back Into The Dungeon!

Last year I attended Quest Night, a local Austin live-action dungeon crawl for charity. Well, this weekend I'm going back into the dungeon! Quest Night is something really special: you spend about two and a half hours wandering through a meticuloulsly-built full-scale dungeon, solving puzzles, and fighting monsters. When you fight monsters, you roll giant foam d20s on a special table, and actors in costume and makeup, portraying the monsters you're fighting, do the same from the other side of the table. It's immersive, engaging, and a huge amount of fun, and all for charity!



If you're in the Austin area, I highly encourage you to attend Quest Night.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Nukes And Aliens And Lasers, Oh My!



Steve Jackson Games has partnered with Topps to bring Mars Attacks trading cards back to the table in this fun adventure with a twist, Mars Attacks - The Dice Game! You play as the Martians trying to take down your favorite locales and take souvenir pictures with famous monuments. Whether trying to resist the push back from New York City or posing with your Martian buds in front of Mount Rushmore, the variable play is guaranteed to be a blast for the whole family! Grab a copy from Warehouse 23 today.

April 9, 2015: A Very Obscure Update

So, we have more Hipster Dice on Warehouse 23. If, you know, you're into that sort of thing. There's more Crisp Denim , I guess.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Getting GURPS Is Easier Than You Think!



It's never been a better time to learn GURPS , thanks to the best-selling How to Be a GURPS GM . Learn all about setting up your own campaign, what options to pick or avoid, and how to craft challenging encounters. Sage advice is just a download away, and only from Warehouse 23!

April 10, 2015: Big Car Wars Sale!

In honor of the Car Wars Arenas Kickstarter, everything  Car Wars is now on sale on Warehouse 23! 25% off of everything, for the rest of April! Woooooo!



Also, in honor of the Kickstarter just having funded (thank you, backers), every dollar we make on this sale counts toward meeting our stretch goals on the Kickstarter!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: A Mission Statement?



Maps are always useful . . . especially if you're in the wild frontier! 0one's Blueprints: Deep Blues - Wild West: Mission has plans for a church that's ideal for rest and respite. Download it by itself, or get it as part of the Wild West Virtual Boxed Set . It's cartographic fun that's off the map, thanks to Warehouse 23!

April 11, 2015: Dice Tower Of Madness

If you've ever thought, "What I need is a giant, sculpted Cthulhu head that's also a dice tower," then you're in luck! This Kickstarter is funding just that. It's beautiful and impressive, and the perfect companion for Cthulhu Dice !



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Get Powered Up, With GURPS



The GURPS Power-Ups series adds goodies and excitement to the GURPS line. Add-ons include Perks , Quirks , Talents , Enhancements , Limitations , and more. They're all huge supplements in little packages, and they're all a download away . . . only from Warehouse 23!

April 12, 2015: On Pillars Of Eternity

If you haven't heard of it,  Pillars of Eternity  is a game that was Kicktarted as "Project Eternity" a while back, and has recently released. If you remember playing old BioWare titles in the Infinity Engine, like  Baldur's Gate ,  Icewind Dale , or  Planescape: Torment ,  Pillars seeks to channel your nostalgia for those games.



For me, at least, it works to great effect.  Pillars uses the old BioWare Infinity-style isometric camera, and the backgrounds are 2D paintings with 3D effects bringing them to life. The result is often pleasant, sometimes breathtaking. The mechanics, too, seem to be trying to emulate what you remember those old games being like, rather than what they actually were like. Again, they succeed with great aplomb. 



But the story. The story is where they succeeded with the most flair, at least for me so far. The quests are deep and engaging, and are rarely as simple as they seem on the surface. What seems like a simple delivery quest might turn into a foray into mercantile intrigue, complete with moral choices, making enemies, and even gaining a new party member. You never really know what you're getting when you decide to help someone in  Pillars , and motives are often unclear. 



The dialog enhances this and, though only about 25% of it is voiced, the prose in  Pillars is well-written and engaging, enough so that, after 37 hours of reading it, I want to know more about the world, the characters, the political intrigue, the monsters, and the curse known as Waidwen's Legacy.



Oh, and here's the other thing: I'm 37 hours into the game and I don't really see an end in sight. Not only that, but I haven't really experienced any of what I'd call "filler content". Every quest has been interesting and has featured unexpected twists. Every conversation, no matter how trivial, has been entertaining enough to keep me reading it.



Is  Pillars of Eternity a perfect game? No. But it is a significant accomplishment.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: So It's A Short Supplement, Right?



With the roll of a few dice, you can add flavor and adventure to your dwarven outpost, thanks to Urban Dressing: Dwarven Town . It includes sights, sounds, businesses, sample folks, plot hooks, and more. Download it today, from Warehouse 23!

April 8, 2015: International TableTop Day Is Upon Us!

International TableTop Day, which is this coming weekend, is a chance for us to come together as a community of gamers and celebrate the hobby we love so much. It's a chance for us to play games we enjoy, to learn new games, and to teach new games to our friends – or to brand new gamers! Steve Jackson Games sponsored ITTD this year, and we're also going to be sending folks to local game stores in Austin to participate in the festivities. Devin and I are also going to get the chance to fly out to Burbank and attend the International TableTop Day flagship event, which should be a lot of fun! 



If you're in the Austin area, you can come to any of these stores on Saturday the 11th and we'll be there, demoing games and talking to fans!



Emerald Tavern Games & Cafe
Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy
Wonko's Toys & Games
Mage's Sanctum
Tribe Comics & Games
Rogue's Gallery Comics & Games



Are you going to participate in ITTD? What are you going to be doing? Whatever it is, we hope you have fun!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: An Epic Ending Awaits!



At last, The Great City: The Sinking series concludes with a final adventure that will take your heroes to the brink. With The Sinking: Doom Golem Rising , your heroes will be part of a climactic battle that could destroy the city. The conclusion is a download away at Warehouse 23!

April 7, 2015: #SJGamesLIVE Car Wars Arenas

Scott Haring and I are hosting the next #SJGamesLIVE to talk about Car Wars Arenas , Car Wars Classic , and all things Car Wars . It is entirely possible that we will reveal something you haven't heard yet!



Join us Thursday, April 9, at 6 p.m. CDT on YouTube! Start asking your questions now on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and our forums. We are giving away two copies of Car Wars Classic signed by Scott Haring, and a printed copy of Uncle Albert's Catalog from Hell . Watch our social feeds, and tune in on Thursday to find out how to enter. Be sure to tag your questions, comments, and entries with #SJGamesLIVE so we can find them!



– Rhea Friesen



Warehouse 23 News: Come To Your Senses, With GURPS



Expanded and all-new sensory abilities are available for GURPS , thanks to GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses . Award-winning author William H. Stoddard offers realistic and cinematic abilities, based on the latest research. This supplement makes a huge amount of sense . . . and you can only download it from Warehouse 23!

April 6, 2015: Car Wars Arenas For Veterans

As the Car Wars Arenas project on Kickstarter races along, some fans of the Car Wars Classic game have told us that they don't know what's inside Car Wars Arenas that they don't already have in their collection of original Car Wars expansions. The great thing about Car Wars Arenas is that, even if you're like me and have the old '80s and '90s  Car Wars books and accessories (you do not want to see my game collection), you don't have these maps professionally printed.



Created from arena designs that we old-timers used to have to draw ourselves at map scale, the Car Wars Arenas project is designed so that the maps match the classic maps; we shipped the factory some original Car Wars maps and used those to select paper stocks and finish. The goal of Car Wars Classic – which I believe we met wonderfully – was to make the game feel as much like the 1990 small box Car Wars game as possible. Now we're extending that goal to the booklet and maps inside Car Wars Arenas .



We think those of you who have enjoyed Car Wars for (we won't talk about it) number of years will want to take a close look at the Arenas project. This is our best chance at getting a retro-style expansion for the original Car Wars game. And yes, if this project overwhelms us with support, that level of interest will influence our decisions on possible future expansions for Car Wars Classic . Click the image to see the difference in scale! (Am I the only one who wants Truck Stop in the same box size as Car Wars Classic and with the original cover, map, and artwork?)



– Phil Reed



Warehouse 23 News: Download Dynamic Duos!



Two-packs of Mutants & Masterminds -compatible characters are just a download away from Warehouse 23. Get Double Team: Graveside VS Purgatory or Double Team: Exile VS Starbound . Each duo is designed to fight each other, making for action-packed packages!

April 5, 2015: Seek And Ye Shall Find . . .

In the same vein as the recent mini-tutorial on how to rate items on Warehouse 23, I thought I'd offer some words of wisdom about searching. Obviously there's the big search field at the top of each page, but did you know there's another search function?



Click the magnifying lens to the right of the search field to pull up the Advanced Search page. From there you can narrow down search results by publisher, contributor, game system, and more. You can show only digital or physical results, and you have a number of sorting options.



So if you wanted to see the newest goodies for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, what Zombie Dice items are available, or all Munchkin digital downloads, it's all just a few clicks away!



– Steven Marsh



Warehouse 23 News: Big (Yet Small) Ideas From One Of The Masters!



Popular gaming author Phil Masters presents a complete RPG: The Small Folk , detailing a world of tiny magical creatures hiding just out of sight from modern society. A huge world of tiny adventure is just a download away, on Warehouse 23!