At Gen Con 2014 I had the chance to sit down with Sean Brown and chat about Spurs and Alien Uprising. Spurs is a do it all kind of Western game. While Alien Uprising is all about crashing on the wrong planet. This interview was a lot of fun, a lot of wierd things happen during it that distract us.
You can learn more at MR. B Games.
Alien Uprising: Crewman Expansion
$24.99 SRP
The Alien Uprising Crewman Expansion introduces custom sculpts of Allie Blade, Jake Comet, Ivan Starr, Jaylen Moon and Corporal Diesel to replace the basic soldier sculpts for your Alien Uprising Core Game. Huddle up Crew! Can you survive the Alien Uprising?
Huddle up Crew! Can you survive the Alien Uprising?
Alien Uprising: Zothren Expansion
$34.99 SRP
BUGS! Everywhere! The Crew has encountered more trouble as they travel through Space. Can you and your Crew take on more Zothrens and survive the Alien Uprising?
Contains:
23 finely sculpted Zothren aliens: -2 Archers
-9 Slashers -2 Scavengers
-2 Tunnelers -2 Champions
-2 Brutes -2 Leaders
-2 Scouts 1 brand new scenario and Wound tokens!
Alien Uprising
$69.99 SRP
Tensions have been high with the alien “bug” races of the galaxy – the Zothren – and your ship has crash landed on the planet Hive IV, one of the more renegade “bug” planets. You quickly set up perimeter force fields and begin surveying the surrounding terrain for debris from your ship, only to find it scattered everywhere. Then you see them – at first only a few “bug” scouts, but then the numbers begin to increase all around you: archers, slashers, and even the monstrous brutes. This is more than a scouting party; this is a war party! They begin to attack the shields as the crew starts to retrieve debris. The SOS has been sent and a ship in the sector has responded, but can it get to you before the “bugs” overwhelm your crew? Can you repair parts of the ship and use it as a defense? Can you repair the hull and fire up the engine to lift off? It’s all in the hands of the crew – your hands.
In Alien Uprising, the player crew must either hold off the Zothren attacks until the rescue ship arrives, or repair the ship and lift off from the hostile planet before being destroyed. To achieve either of these goals, the crew must work together, using their unique skills and chosen actions to perform a number of tasks, defend themselves, and retrieve and repair equipment and the ship.
To establish the actions available each turn, the first player rolls custom dice, then each player chooses an action for the turn, starting with the first player. The available actions include combat, engineering, reload/recharge first aid, scout, and wild; the dice also have an alien icon that shows the speed of the enemy while limiting the actions that players have available to them. Players also have unique character skills, and the game can be set to higher levels of difficulty for more experienced players.
1-5 players
Ages 14+
90-120 minute play time
Only 8 days left, are you excited yet? Well yesterday we discussed a Dropzone Commander. A game that when it came on the scene it hit the ground running and hasn’t stopped since. Today I’d like to talk about Golem Arcana from Hairbrained Schemes. Hairbrained Schemes is a small group of passionate game developers lead by Jordan Weisman, complete list here.
Golem Arcan is a new game that could potentially hold some keys to the future of gaming. Let’s start with the basics. Golem Arcana is a miniatures board game that is striving to incorporate the use of smart devices. I did get a look at the miniatures at Origins and the are excellent. Beautifully sculpted with dynamic poses and painted with vibrant colors, what you would expect from an average to an above average hobby painter. While the miniatures are an important part of the game I don’t believe they are the focus.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 Matt Takes a look at the contents of Heroes of Metro City. The super hero card game that allows players to make the hero each time they play. Brought to us by 3 Some Games.
Learn more about Heroes of Metro City at Game Salute.
Another day gone only 10 days left. Where is the time going? Talk about an absolutely nuts day. It started at 4:45 in the morning. My boys had to march in the Football hall of Fame parade. Took the van in for repairs and I cooked dinner for my parents! I’m tired.
Today I’d like to chat about Adventure a Week. If you are a role player in the D20 world this might be worth your time. Every week they publish a new Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 adventure.I’m certainly going to look into it.
In March they finished the Rise of the Drow on Kickstarter. It puts the previous PDF’s into print. Plus the book puts some great people,like Owen K.C.Stephens, Jen Page, and Robert Gulver. to work on the stretch goals. I will admit I’ve never seen the PDF, but after seeing the art for the Kickstarter I really want to take an in depth look at the book. I mean it’s Drow and it has a mushroom forest. Something that I had started designing myself. I love the idea and maybe I’ll be lazy and use theirs.
They Currently have another Kikckstarter Snow White. An adventure for 6th -8th level characters in a fairy tale adventure. If it keeps climbing stretch goals we will see some great additions from Ed Greenwood, Wolfgang Bauer, and Jen Page. I would really like to see what Wolfang has planned for that deep and dark fairy tale magic.
Well it’s late and I’m exhausted. I fell a sleep three times typing this.
Til tomorrow take care
Matt
The last 24 hours have been fun. I have been hard at work writing the frame work for our Through Gamer Goggles scavenger hunt. It was hard to get through all of that while thinking about all the cool things that the Writer’s Symposium will have going on for the 20th anniversary. Before I go any further I should really share some things with you about the symposium.
Let’s take a look at the program. It starts Thursday at 9:00 A.M. and runs until noon on Sunday, taking a break every night at 9:00 P.M. That is over 120 hours of events. The events come in a variety, panels, seminars, and hands on experience. I have found that they are all beneficial. There will be times when you come away with more knowledge than others. From my experience I believe the key is to participate – engage in discussion with the teachers and attendees. That is how you can get the most from the visit. I highly encourage you to participate in the critiques next year, they are probably sold out already this year. They are your chance to have face to face time with four editors, great elbow rubbing time!
If it were not for several of the friends I made at Gen Con in 2011 through the symposium, it is safe to say I wouldn’t be doing this today. I should also note that if it weren’t for Ryan Hale Through Gamer Goggles would not exist – that’s a different story though. When I first started attending Gen Con it was for the sole purpose of learning about the craft of writing. The symposium gave me so much more. It is a valuable community (most events are free), that gives well beyond the convention.
You meet these authors that are for the most part really easy to talk to and you find them on facebook and bam you get inspired. It works like this. The writers are all about self promotion so you see a great deal of what they accomplish. Which in turn is motivational, at least to me. I figure if they can do it I can too. As a result of the volunteer authors service, I’m currently working on a novel (have to develop the world first), a novella for a very cool game world, and some short fiction. After Gen Con I’m going to pitch some adventures to Adventure a Week and Kobold Press. Oh and because Elizabeth Vaughan suggested I get into a writer’s guild, I ended up as the vice president here in Canton. See what I mean it’s a community that doesn’t end at Gen Con.
I’m indebted to the Writer’s Symposium, out of all of my convention experiences it has proven to be the most valuable. I really can’t say enough about the symposium and how deep it goes. I can tell you it has changed me forever.
Until tomorrow take care.
Matt
It occurred to me that my count might end up off. That isn’t because I can’t count, it’s much more likely that I might not have the time to make the posts once I arrive in Indy.
It has been a day since I shared my desire to explore The Amega Weapon. Today we will look at aliens. Is it a surprise that there will be aliens at Gen Con? I’m sure that I’m going to leave some out, but I’m really looking forward to checking Alien Uprising from Mr.B. Games, All quiet on the Martian Front, and Mars Attacks.
Guardians’ Chronicles
$69.99 SRP
Guardians Chronicles is a superhero-themed miniatures game in which you play as one of the members of the Liberty Patrol or as the group’s archnemesis, Professor Skarov.
To set up, the Skarov player arranges the nine double-sided game board tiles into a 3×3 grid, with his control room in the center space. Each player takes her character sheet, miniature and 7-10 action cards. These characters enter the grid on one of the side tiles and need to advance around the square – confronting minions and traps along the way – in order to achieve whatever objectives are in place for this game, such as thwarting a nuclear missile attack.
Each turn, the hero players play 1-2 action cards; each card shows both a special power and modifiers to that hero’s inherent statistics – movement, attack, defense and mental – and the played cards can be used for either the special power or the modifiers. Each hero player has four actions in a round, and the players can play in any order they wish; the actions are move across the base, attack an enemy, or use a special power on a played action card or the hero’s character sheet.
Professor Skarov then receives a number of action points based partially on the heroes’ actions, and he uses these to activate himself, his minions, or his robots, with these figures also performing move, attack, or special power actions.
As the players complete (or fail to complete) objectives, the newspaper’s report on who did what, and the sum of those reports determine who comes out on top.
2-5 players
Ages 14+
