Kickstarter Roundup 11-21-13

Where-in I pick through Kickstarter for the projects that most catch my fancy.

Bubblegum Crisis Ultimate Edition Blu-Ray Set

WHAT IT IS: A definitive Blu-Ray release of the classic cyberpunk anime.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: Come on, it's Bubblegum Crisis. On Blu-Ray. Do you really need a reason? Okay, okay...Bubblegum Crisis was one of the first unedited, subtitled anime releases in North America, making for a watershed moment and a title a lot of tried and true anime fans are nostalgic for. It's also being released by the original licensee, and your backing dollar supports a smaller company putting out high-quality releases.

WHAT YOU SHOULD GET: $50 Basic. The physical Blu-Ray disc, postcards, commemorative coin, and involvement in the design process of the Blu-Ray itself.

RELEVANT LINKS: @animeigo | www.animeigo.com | Facebook Page

 

Hana Doki Kira

WHAT IT IS: A shoujo-inspired comic/illustration anthology lovingly designed and printed.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: There's a lot to like here, great artwork, the promise of great shoujo tales...but I'll be honest. What sold me is the brilliant use of the seafoam spot color. (Even the project page is adorned in nothing but head-to-toe.) Two-tone printing seems to be a lost art form as full-color has become ubiquitous, but you can do some really special things with it and use shades that simply aren't reproducible in CMYK. 

WHAT YOU SHOULD GET: $25 Doki Doki Deluxe Pre-Order. The book, the PDF, and a set of postcards. Higher pledges feature sketches, commissions, tote bags, and other premiums that might strike your fancy.

RELEVANT LINKS: Tumblr | Facebook

 

Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works

WHAT IT IS: An incredible retrospective of an incredible console. SEEEE-GAAA!

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: First off. The cover. Just look at it. That's a glorious cover, is it not? But this project is more than a pretty face. Exclusive interviews with a veritable who's-who of Sega's 16-bit history, myriad production images of both the console and classic games, 300 pages of cover-to-cover nostalgia awesome, and did I mention how amazing that cover looks?

WHAT YOU SHOULD GET: £30 (roughly $48) The Book. A physical copy of the book and your name immortalized in its pages. No blue hedgehog included unless you go for the $400 hyper-limited edition.

RELEVANT LINKS:  @romalerts | www.readonlymemory.vg

 

Board Games That Tell Stories

WHAT IT IS: A collection of 35 fan-favorite articles from the game blog of the same name.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: It's not often you can get material written about game design (or tabletop games in general) packaged in a nice hardcover. When it's written by the designer of many great board games, like Neuroshima Hex, it's even better. Admittedly, the text suffers a bit from English being Trzewiczek's second language, but there's still loads of insight and fun humor here. And the cover looks nice.

WHAT YOU SHOULD GET: $26 Hardcover. Nets you a signed hardcover version of the book. But if you poke around the add-ons you can get one of Trzewiczek's great games.

RELEVANT LINKS: http://www.BoardGamesThatTellStories.com/

Far-Off Promise

A new year lay ahead, and the promise of a new set of days inspires the best intentions. The world echoes with countless commitments to work harder, be healthier, to care for each other, and to change in ways we hadn’t the year before. The sentiments are as often enough as vague as they are well-intentioned, the sort of positive thinking that we can stretch and contract to the size we can make room for.

But I want to do more than that this year. I want a game plan, as much for myself as for the accountability saying it outright provides. That’s not to say 2011 was empty of accomplishments. After all, I helped Minion Games ready no less than six games for sale in a single year -- no mean feat! And I took part in a graphical overhaul for DriveThruRPG and its sister sites that will be rolling out soon. Yet, for 2012, I want to get my things done.

So, here it is, my plan for the year. (Split up for your convenience and mine.)

My Blog 
I’ve been moving to a new computer, an iMac, for the past month or two — the lengthy travails of which I'll have to detail one or these days — but I fully intend to get this blog back on track. Besides my usual excursions of fancy, I'm launching several bi-weekly columns.

You’ve seen a taste of the first one with the Digital Gameboard. I’ll be making a point of covering all the gaming apps I come across, especially those involving euro-style board games and their kin. I stand by that the iPad is a great platform for classic board gaming fun and can use all the coverage it can get.

I’ll also be penning my foolhardy quest to play every console rpg ever. It's something that’s become ever more difficult as my list of unplayed and unfinished games grows longer. But maybe by adding you all to my party, this quest may become less of a foolhardy one.

And for those of you wondering, yes Minion Monday will eventually finish out its run. I’m waiting on my own physical copies of the games so I can better show off the components. It’s just taking a little longer than expected.

My Games
While there’s a certain anime-inspired elephant in the room, I have up my sleeves a plethora of games I've tinkered on in perpetuity, and I’d really like to finally get some of them out the metaphorical door and into the light. While finishing, much less releasing, all of them in this revolution of the sun is a unlikely accomplishment, I do want progress, and I want to share that progress with you. Here's a highlight reel of what to expect.

OVA — Yes, the oft-promised return of Wise Turtle's flagship product is still very much in the works, and I’ve made a commitment to its release in the early half of 2012. Long-time fans may have dim memories of several supplements that I hope to talk more about and bring closer to release. You can see a sample of artwork for a sci-fi-themed supplement on the left of the header, done by feguimel.

Legendary! — While I love all my work for Minion Games, and all its games are special to me, they’re still not mine in any true sense of the word. Legendary! is a fantasy dungeon-crawl of a board game inspired by fond childhood memories of Dungeon, but with enough twists to the formula that I believe in its ability to give something new to a crowded and often trite set of games. It’s infused with lore from a lifetime of love for console rpgs, and the very talented Honoel Ibardolaza certainly brings it to life. That trio of numbskulls in the header is his handiwork.

Last Legend — Before OVA, I was a devoted follower (and sometimes contributor) to the Returner Final Fantasy RPG, an attempt to capture the spirit of the eponymous video games in pen and paper form. Eventually I left that community over a difference of opinion...whereas most were concerned with copying the actual game mechanics and number crunching of the video games, I felt the rules would be better served trying to approximate the feel of rpg battles and leave the math for the CPUs that spawned it. Last Legend is my on again, off again take on the subject. You can see some art from it in the header, this time the inks in the background that are once again provided by Honoel.

iOS — Tied in with all these is a general interest in the iOS platform. Now that I have an iMac (more about that in a future post), exploring the world of iPads and iPhones is a real possibility. While the likelihood of me gaining enough prowess with programming to create a game of any decent measure is not good, having access to the tools does open other interesting opportunities. OVA-dedicated apps to aid with dice-rolling, character creation, and even easy rules reference would be a great resource to provide players, and iOS versions of the various Minion Games would be cool indeed.

My work for others
While I said I wanted to make 2012 a year for my projects, there is at least one outside job I'm really excited about. If you follow Ewen Cluney's blog, you may already know what I mean. If not...well, be sure to check by Tuesday for my own official announcement!

Thinking Inside the Box

The role-playing game has changed a lot in the past decades. It’s had its waxes and wanes in popularity, its trends in game design, and more than a few really funny looking dice along the way. But if you were to look at the industry from the outside — as someone who barely knew what an RPG was, much less concerned with the evolution of rules and design — one of the single most obvious changes is the abandonment of the boxed game.

That’s not to say there aren’t boxed games anymore. Wizards of the Coast’s new homage to the iconic Red Box can attest to that much. Nor am I saying that heavy hardbound tomes weren’t around ages ago, what with Gary Gygax’s approach for the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. But at the same time, game makers’ expectation of who their gamers are has drastically changed. A game's largest body of fans are the same grognards that have been buying RPGs for decades, a group that has little need for yet another set of dice.

It’s an expectation that makes sense. It doesn’t hurt that RPG fans host a disproportionately large gathering of bibliophiles that appreciate the beauty in a well-designed book. Abandoning the box allows a greater attention to creating such things and trims the fat out of a gaming collection.

Yet there just is something downright magical about a box. It’s more than a vessel for carrying contents; it’s a promise of the unknown. Beneath its cardboard exterior lay all the materials you need to embark on countless adventures — and probably a few things you don’t. But even if the back features a itemized list of every last punch-out token that hides inside, there’s still some glorious sense of surprise when you lift the lid off for the first time.

Boxes are inclusive. Modern rulebooks tend to be the domain of the Game Master, or a requisite purchase for all Players to invest in and make use of to create the awesomest hero. But when you whip out the box, there’s everything everyone needs. Hand over the introductory rulebook, pass out the character sheets! It makes trying a new RPG as easy as popping open Monopoly.

I think that feeling of open invitation is a grand factor in why board games are doing so well now. Even if there’s a high price sticker stuck to the front, there’s comfort in the idea you can just buy just that one thing and be ready to roll right out of the box. It doesn’t make the assumption you’ve played an RPG before, or that you have fellow geeks to explain it to you. It’s a gate all by itself, with a view of the world beyond and a set of keys hung neatly to its side, waiting for you and whoever else you want to bring along to unlock it.

And I think that’s a mistake much of the RPG industry is making. Despite being an entirely social activity, RPGs have become more and more a private place. The gate has been replaced with iron doors and the activities beyond like a clandestine secret society, their charter an endless collection of rules, addendum, and errata. There are players out there who don’t even know they love RPGs — the expansive realm of freeform message board role-plays are proof enough of that. I think our little niche of the world could be a slightly bigger one if we didn’t always wave around 10 pound books and instead proffered a little promise, sealed away in a box.