Steve Jackson's Blog, page 438

November 21, 2013: And One More Thing!

We'll also have people at Austin Comic Con this weekend. Come see us!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Camping Is A Legitimate Strategy!



Game starts. Enemy in sight . . . Frag him! Grab his stuff! Run!



Frag Gold Edition is a first-person shooter without the computer – grab weapons and upgrades, restore your health, move around the board and frag your opponents.



And if you get fragged yourself, just respawn and start over!



Designed by Philip Reed.

November 20, 2013: Conventions This Weekend

We've got people going to conventions this weekend! We'll be at BGGCon in Dallas, where we'll have a booth and everything, and Lenny Balsera's going to be at UCon in Michigan. We hope to see you there!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Your Destiny Awaits On The Field Of Battle.

The true power of Feng Shui is known only to a few . . . too bad they all want you dead.



Bad guys are coming out of the woodwork to wage the secret war. Modern-day conspiracy masterminds. Cyber-demonic scientists from the future.



They've almost won: Portals through time lay bare a secret history of our world, a history that changes like the breeze and can erase you without you even knowing it.



This is the world of Feng Shui, the Hong Kong martial arts action movie roleplaying game. To play, you'll need a few friends, some six-sided dice, and a wicked grin.

November 19, 2013: Mars Attacks! Delayed

Unfortunate news, fans of Munchkin and martians. When we got a look at our newly-printed Munchkin Apocalpyse: Mars Attacks! cards we noticed a printing error, one we didn't feel right about passing on to you. So rather than ship a product with an obvious defect, we're reprinting it. This means a delay, but it means a better product when you finally get your hands on it. You should be able to get your copy in January.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Finish Up That Wall!



Building castles in the olds days was a lot harder, but no more!



Castellan is a new castle building game where you cooperate with your fellow builders to construct a castle.



But beware, the King will only award one builder with his prize.



Can you complete enough courtyards to win?

November 17, 2013: Crowdfunding Spotlight: Hollywood Is Dead

Do you like zombies? Of course you do! So do we, and we like movies too. The folks Kickstarting Hollywood is Dead are making a coffee table book that combines these two great flavors: it's a book full of classic movie posters redone to be all zombified. It's like chocolate and delicious brains.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Strike Fast And Move!



The agile G.E.V.s are the fastest things on the battlefield of the future; in an open arena, nothing can stand up to their hit-and-run tactics . . . except an Ogre.



Combine Set 4 - GEV Company is divided up into flights of four units each – two Raptor flights and two Gremlin flights, for a total of 72 points.



Get this and more Ogre miniatures at Warehouse 23 .

November 18, 2013: Mastering Fire, Water, And Earth? With GURPS, It's Elementary!

Wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Cycling between creation and destruction, the Chinese view of elemental forces are as perfect in their balance as they are flavor . . . which makes them ideal for gaming! From the mind of William H. Stoddard – author of GURPS Social Engineering , GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics and many others – comes GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers , a new magic system that adds these elemental wonders to your game. This supplement features 60 worked abilities and 20 new perks, spread among the five elemental categorizations. It also includes expanded advantages, disadvantages, and skills to create myriad variations of elementalists, plus campaign ideas for using these awesome forces in your settings.



Whether you want to attack your foes with the Drowning Embrace, hide yourself with the Smoke Veil, or push your limits with the Endurance of Bamboo, you're sure to add new realms of possibilities to your game. With GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers , you'll be fired up, get down to earth, and test your metal!



– Steven Marsh



Warehouse 23 News: Put On Your Labcoat And Rubber Gloves!



Mad Scientist University is in open enrollment!



This storytelling party game by Atlas Games challenges aspiring supervillains to devise the most ingenious evil plots to take over the world! What's your sinister scheme?



And don't forget the expansion MSU: Spring Break !

November 16, 2013: Geek Dad On The Ogre Party

Anton Olsen over at Geek Dad was at our Ogre Launch Party and had some really nice things to say about it and about the Kickstarter and the game in general. We're glad he and his son are enjoying it so much, and we hope those of you who have your Ogres are too!



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Invest In Silver!



Expand your portfolio with the Munckin Level Die (silver with black ink) .



The "10" space has been replaced with a Munchkin head so when you win everyone knows you are the ultimate Munchkin .



This is only one of six Munchkin Level Dice .

November 14, 2013: A Short Time Ago In A Lab Not Too Far Away . . .

. . . scientists invented lightsabers. Or at least, something that might lead to lightsabers. The world is very strange.



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: More Cards For Your Enjoyment!



For the third year in a row, we got some extra cards and assembled them into the Warehouse 23 Exclusive Munchkin Booster 2012 .



Enjoy your very own Fright Sprite, Mister Ded, Potion of Anesthesia, and many more.



Only available at Warehouse 23 .

November 15, 2013: Now Shipping!

Your FLGS is going to have all sorts of great stuff soon! We've got the Zombie Dice Brain Case , Munchkin Gets Promoted , Munchkin Pathfinder: Gobsmacked! , and GURPS Zombies !

Zombie Dice Brain Case



Upgrade your game with the Zombie Dice Brain Case . . . a stylish, noisy dice cup with a screw-on lid ringed with 13 braaaaaaaiiiins. Brraaaiiiinnnnsssss!!!



It comes with one Zombie Dice Score Pad for easy brain counting.



This is not a stand-alone game. This is an accessory for Zombie Dice.


Munchkin Gets Promoted



Our Munchkin promotional cards have been popular giveaways for years, but they've been tough for some fans to track down. Worry no more! We've taken a dozen of our favorite promo cards and made a new booster pack out of them . . . and, for good measure, we included three NEW cards, never before available!



This set includes:



Curse! Zombification


Cut In Line


Henchmonster


John of the Dead


The Last Laugh


Love Thy Neighbor


Mug The Shopkeeper


Ranger Hireling


Stacked Deck


Step-And-A-Half


Whim of the Elder Gods


Zombie Santa
It also has three NEW cards: Billiard Ball of Nonexistence, Get A Head, and the titular Get Promoted!


Munchkin Pathfinder: Gobsmacked!



After we finished Munchkin Pathfinder we found another hob of goblins hiding under the desk . . . so we made a booster out of 'em. Fight off the Goblin Babies, Cog Goblin, and Goblin Hood with the Gobliterator! Just don't get Gobsmacked! . . .


GURPS Zombies
Undead, Infected, or Just Plain Cursed?



So . . . you think you know zombies. Are you sure? You want to be certain about something like chopping off an arm after a crazy person gets bitey, and it would be most unfortunate if you were looking out for the walking dead when a little kid with a fever lunged for your brains. If only there were a guide to all this stuff!



GURPS Zombies aims to please. It goes into detail on all kinds of zombies – undead and living, slow and fast, supernatural and superscience, and more. Its pages include:



A rules-free survey of zombies by fictional and folkloric origin, physical and supernatural type, and dramatic role.


Systematic guidelines for creating custom zombies to surprise your players.


Ready-to-use examples for the zombie-master in a rush: B-movie and fantasy undead, living-but-infected crazies, necromancers' pets, science experiments gone horribly wrong, surgical constructs gone disturbingly right, and many others.


Rules for topics dear to the zombie-lover's heart: horde management, splatter and contagion, cures, and even inventing new kinds of zombies!


Information for those who must confront zombies, including gear recommendations, rules for avoiding infection and simply surviving, and templates for survivors, zombie-hunters, and zombie-makers.


Advice on using all this in any genre. Who says zombies are only for horror?
Get ready for the time of your life – or unlife, if need be. Every zombie fan will find something to cackle about here! GURPS players get the bonus of detailed rules and stats to tell them exactly how hosed they'll be when the zeds turn up on their doorstep.




– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Where Can You See Lions?



Only in Nymabe: African Adventures , the African fantasy setting from Atlas Games that spins familiar genre staples in new and unusual directions!



All right, maybe you can see lions and tigers elsewhere, but perhaps nowhere as fun as in Nymabe . . . and your players will never see it coming.



The Power of PDF: Nyambe: African Adventures is also available as a digital download on our sister-site, e23!
 

November 13, 2013: It Awakes

First this, now this. Clearly we've awakened something with our ill-conceived blood sacrifice to the deeps, and it will rise up and devour us in our hubris. It ripples in an unwholesome way. 



– Brian Engard



Warehouse 23 News: Tell Your Own Fantastic Tales...



Once Upon a Time is the award-winning storytelling card game that encourages creativity and collaborative play.



This is a game for all ages – all you need are basic reading skills, a healthy imagination, and friends or family to enjoy playing with.



The 3rd Edition features new artwork, a revised cardlist, a redesigned box and a simplified rulesheet.

November 12, 2013: Coming Up For Air

Since Halloween, my days have been pretty much alike: get up, move some things out of the house, throw other things away, repeat until midnight, go to bed. Thanks to the generosity of a friend who lives a few minutes from my office (AND my ex-home AND the storage unit), I have a place to stay that minimizes commute.



This flood will be talked about for a long time, in a lot of ways. The city knew it was coming and spent some of its own money to buy out houses in the floodplain. And if that had not happened, there would have been many more flooded homes and, I'm sure, even more loss of life. But they asked for federal money, and didn't get it due to the various budget issues deadlocking Washington. Which left a lot of houses listed in their plan but not actually bought . . . and, frankly, their plan was naive, pinchpenny, and made no provision for hundreds of houses, even closer to the creek, that had flooded just a few years ago. But, again, no federal money showed up.



And then, as far as anyone can tell, the city just went into "Oh, well, we'll get to it when we can" mode. Certainly that was exactly the answer they gave when asked for progress reports. Mother Nature struck first and people died. And it appears that the city's initial emergency response was slowed, despite many 911 calls, because the electronic flood gauge for the area was showing nothing abnormal. It had been completely swept away, and apparently "no signal" was interpreted as "normal." I hope THAT gets fixed . . . But a lot of questions will be asked about why the city thought "no money from the feds" somehow made the whole problem less pressing.



After that rocky start, the Austin Police Department did a great job of pulling people (including me) out of chest-deep water or off cars and roofs. Shelters were set up – fortunately, I didn't need a place to stay. I hiked down the other side of the hill from the assembly point, and, Monica (who was working very late and therefore not at home when the flood hit her house) took me to the office, which was a clean, dry base of normality. By the time it was fully daylight, it was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and no sign that a few miles away the "creek" had gone 41 feet out of its banks and destroyed several neighborhoods. And I was on the phone making arrangements for a very changed life . . .




The image is looking backward from the rescue boat. We're putting along, several feet above what used to be the major street into the neighborhood. The phone lines will give you some idea of the water depth. The light behind us is another boat, steadily catching up because the one I was on had engine problems. After taking this picture, my iPhone went into hibernation. It was days before it dried out enough to work again (silica gel helped) but now it seems fine. And it was out of warranty already . . .



Other groups that provided aid after the flood included (of course) the American Red Cross and the LDS; volunteer groups from Home Depot and many local churches; the city trash crews who had huge skips in the area as soon as the streets were opened, and emptied them over and over; and a lot of "just plain folks" who came by to help. I'm sure I am neglecting some important volunteer groups, because there were many. There were also, of course, the swarms of TV crews . . . and the legitimate disaster-recovery companies . . . and the sketchy guys who don't have a business card but really want to tell you how much you can save with their "honest, family-owned business" . . . and the speculators offering Cash for Houses in Any Condition! And today I saw my first freelance photographer. I think they emerge from the mud after about a week, like crocuses but not as pretty. He was walking down the nearly-deserted street, striking dramatic crouchy poses, and (I assume) snapping shot after shot. I really wanted to tell him about unipods.



The SJ Games staff is doing a wonderful job of keeping the show on the road without me. I hope to come up for air next week and take a few days of relative normality at BGGcon.



Thanks again to everyone who has offered good wishes and help. There's really nothing to do here and now except pack boxes and put them on shelves, and I've gotten assistance from some of the staff here, from LEGO friends in Austin, and by a couple of great guys who are regulars at Wonko's (the game store next to the Ogre Logistics Facility). There is no need for a Steve Relief Fund. A lot of my neighbors could use help, and so could millions of people in the Philippines who got hit by a typhoon that was a lot worse than our little 41-foot flood. So I'd say: if you are around Austin, donate to one of the Onion Creek funds or just come out and help people, and if you are anyplace else, support a group that is working in the Philippines. Like the Red Cross, or the LDS, or the U.S. Marines.



At some point, I really will get back to making some new games.



– Steve Jackson



 



Warehouse 23 News: Let The Hunt Begin!



Fish and seals and bears – oh my!



Boast loudly, go on the hunt, and hope you don't meet Nanuk , the great polar bear.



Check out this fast-playing, highly social game of bidding and bluffing today!



Available at Warehouse 23 .