Myself and Matt (our community & marketing person) went on a trip to meet the good people of the European Space Agency and I had the nerdy, but obvious idea to record our new Mars Horizon: Blast Off! boardgame alongside one of the Rosalind Franklin aka ExoMars Rovers, which my colleague Kathryn kindly put to music…
It was exciting to demo the game to actual people working on Mars missions and everyone there was so kind. If you missed out, you can join in here. The Kickstarter update is here.
The Development of Chainsaw Warrior
Following an odd conversation at work, I dug out a flow chart that I’d made as part of the development of the classic Chainsaw Warrior. To set the scene, the game is a 1989 boardgame by Stephen Hard and published by Games Workshop where a lone cybernetic warrior has to enter a demon-infested New York to save the city. Here’s the trailer:
So the boardgame looks quite simple in terms of components;
Chainsaw Warrior Original Board Game
But it has an excellent gameplay system that is quite complex to convert;
(If you click that link, you get the PDF) If that sounds of interest, do check out the podcast on it here (scroll down to the ‘deep dive’ into Chainsaw Warrior). Also you can grab the game and sequel on Steam.
Oh and there are t-shirts too! Selling fast…..
It’s been a long time coming, but it is going to be well worth the wait! Here’s the official trailer…
Updated Dark Future Beta News!
We were due to be running the Dark Future beta last weekend, but due to issues out of our control, this didn’t happen. We’re looking to run this weekend. Either way, sign up here!
Off to GDC… #GDC2019
Today I head off to GDC. Oddly it’s the first time in over 20 years in the games industry. I’ve managed to not go before from a mix of having other projects on and not really wanting to travel that far.
If you’re going to be there, would be great to say hello – tweet me or if you’re going to be at:
- Day of the Devs screening (19th)
- UK Industry drink reception(UKie event, 20th)
- ID@Xbox event (21st)
I’m there in part demoing Dark Future and Mars Horizon, so grab me if you want to see them. In part having bizdev meetings re with publishing, offering porting and more – so grab me if you want to talk that. I’m also chatting a bit re Bristol Games Hub, so also grab me if you want to chat that. (Even if none of those, say hi anyway!)
See you soon!
Games Companies Cooperating – Us!
I was very pleased to be part of this announcement…
And don’t forget!
Mars Horizon Blast Off is Live!
Super happy news, the card game that we’ve spun out of the main development of Mars Horizon is now live for backing! Please join us on Kickstarter!
If you’re interested in the roots of the project, see here…
Lots more to come!
Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is on Switch
So I’m late to posting this, but it is out there on the Switch now and huge congats to the team at Auroch Digital, Ripstone and Modiphius for all the hard work getting us there!
There was an interesting interview with the original creator of the great Warhammer 40,000 in (I think) Tabletop Gaming magazine. I wrote out a quote from the print edition that grabbed me about the inspirations that swirled around its creation…
“We were inspired by things like Philip Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers about a sort of artificial world idea. There’s a lot of that kind of thing in the Cthulhu Mythos as well, the Great Old Ones and galaxy spanning races, or going back to Doc EE Smith, you’ve got these two civilisations that go out and seed the entire galaxy. The Warhammer world was essentially conceived of as a science-fiction world which has gone fantasy.”
In the 1st edition of 40K they also talk about other inspirations which can be seen clearly within the game itself – Dune, Foundation & Empire to name a couple.
I was also interested to see he noted a game called Battle: Practical Wargaming as an inspiration.
Final point I was also fascinated to read was that the reason there is a wide range of factions and races was the idea you could use other game’s minis are stand-ins. For example the Adeptus Arbites were there so you could use the range of 2000AD Judge Dredd minis (which GW, back then sold) in your game.
I could not find a link to the interview, but he has a new game coming soon…
A Great Becoming... 