Rift Zone: Contact

Hey Folks, surprise, bonus article this week. Today I'm sharing something interesting i found on Kickstarter that has a lot of potential for the Wargaming crowd. Today we're looking at Rift Zone: Contact by Boosted Reality. Let's dig into this and then I'll link you to the Kickstarter in progress for you to go see what you think.

BattleTech: Mercenaries Kickstarter

 Hey Folks, Today is the Day!  Our BattleTech Kickstarter package came in!  Well, one of them did.  The SO and I each backed and had our stuff shipped as separate orders.  My stuff is in, hers is not.  She is less amused than I am.  So, the grand box has arrived, and we’re going to do a big unboxing, (I’ll do separate reviews of individual products in the coming weeks, but this is the grand boxening).  

Battletech Kickstarter Stretch Goals (Decisions, Decisions)

We’ve hit an interesting point in the Clan Invasion Kickstarter for Battletech by our old friends at Catalyst Game Labs. We’re still crushing stretch goals, but they’ve been stretched out a little further, and while i would prefer a couple more tangible rewards than some of the things we’ve seen, (like put in a full star of Battle Armor in the Clan Invasion Box), overall the stretch goals are ostensibly things that I, as a long time Battletech fan am interested in. But, we have hit a snag of possibly epic proportions coming up the pipe. Two of the stretch goals unlocked say basically “All right Battletech Fans, it’s your invasion now, and what ‘Mechs do you want to see?” I see Doom coming for us all. Bear with, i have charts and a couple of other things to dive into, so we’re going to examine these seemingly innocuous choices and find the spot of bother i see coming.

The Clan Invasion Kickstarter

First up, Check out the Kickstarter Here

Now then

Hey Game Fans, long time readers will know we’ve been huge fans of Battletech since the jump, and it’s one of our gaming cultural touchstones.  It and Dungeons and Dragons, (and to a lesser extent, Deadlands), are the games we always seem to find our way back to. It may take a month, or six months, but somehow, someway, we always find our way back to Battletech.  So the new Kickstarter for the Clan Invasion boxed set was met with cheers from the two current Star Colonel level backers in our office (I’m considering upgrading to Galaxy Commander, with recent updates). The Kickstarter is as of the writing of this article at 688K with over 3500 backers on Day 2 of the Campaign, with a stated goal of 30K to funding.  We’re crushing stretch goals to the left and to the right as we cruise towards the finish line, but we as fans and supporters of Battletech need to realize a couple of things.  

Retroverse Preview

Hey Game fans, we’re back with another article on one of our favorite topics, Dungeons and Dragons. Now our good friends over at Lasers and Liches (website here) are gearing up for a Kickstarter to launch their Retroverse campaign setting (officially launches on April 10th, so save your pennies). It’s an homage to neon lights, synth music, and a reality where everything is possible. Over the weekend they were nice enough to release a free preview for some of the stuff that’s coming with that setting. (You can find that preview here). Let’s talk about the themes we’re seeing so far, and talk about a couple of things.

Growing and Learning with RPGs

Hey Game Fans, I’ve got a brief editorial today that i wanted to share with you before i got back to the more regular work of breaking down adventures and options.  I wanted to talk about those moments that we all experience where we grow and learn things about ourselves from the games we play.  I have been playing RPGs and other games since i was in 2nd grade (I was terrible at it, but i was trying).  In the intervening 25+ years, i have had moments where i was playing a game or reading a book (or in modern times, watching a live play game on Twitch) and something in experienced changed the way i look at games and their role in our lives.  Let me share two of these instances with you, and maybe you can think about some of these instances that have affected the way you look at games.  

Bluebeard's Bride (A Closer look)

Bluebeard’s Bride is horror roleplaying game from the wonderful minds at Magpie Games.  They’ve put together a dark and sinister fairy tale of survival and determination, written from a feminine perspective.  Based off of the dark fairytale Bluebeard’s Bride, the players take the role of “sisters”, each of which represent a portion of the Bride’s mind as she explores the house her new husband has given her the keys to.  Let’s take a closer look at some core thoughts and ideas for the game.

 

Bluebeard's Bride (First Looks)

Another great find on Kickstarter is Bluebeard’s Bride.  Some roleplaying games are big, and full of epic adventures and cover many different types of stories.  Bluebeard’s Bride takes that idea and says “no.”  It focuses on one specific story that it can tell over and over again, rivalling a 1,001 nights in terms of depth and interaction.  I have been reading and playing roleplaying games for over 25 years, and i think that i’ve seen a lot of the different ways that you can present roleplaying games.  Then i see something like this and it just blows my mind.  Let’s take a look at Bluebeard’s Bride.

Open Legend RPG (First Looks)

A couple of interesting games popped across my Kickstarter Feed this week, and i have to admit i have been mightily impressed by both of them.  I’ll talk about the first one, Open Legend, in this article, and the other one, Bluebeard’s Bride, should get a feature later this afternoon.  Open Legend is an Open Source, System Agnostic Role-playing Game and features a lot of heavy talent from the RPG community, including, Ed Greenwood (Yes, that Ed Greenwood) and Matt Mercer (Yes, that Matt Mercer) to name just a couple of the people that are involved.  My connection is tangential, as it is through my internet friendship with Ryan Schapals, one of the many hard working folks who help bring Hyper RPG to life every week.  It’s a brand new kickstarter campaign that’s only been up for a day, but when last seen had allready cracked two stretch goals.  Let’s take a closer look under the hood of the game.

Weekly Review

All right Game Fans, we’re going to engage in some chicanery today because we’re working on different equipment than we’re used to.  With the untimely demise of Work Horse 1, we have to adjust our article writing and publishing schedule a little bit.  That’s all right with us, but it means we’re covering things a little differently.  So moving forward we’re going to be doing a combined week in review, week going forward so that you can catch up on what were talked about last week and what we’re going to be talking about for this week. Let’s get this thing started, shall we?

 

Week in Review 9/5/16

Week in Review 9/5/16

All right Game Fans, we’re bringing you our week in review for the week ending Monday, September 5th.  It’s Labor Day here in the states so we’re running a little later than normal.  It’s been a busy week around the office and for the gaming hobby in general. The sooner we get this started, the sooner we can get the rest of the week started.  

Week in Review 8/29/16

Week in Review 8/29

All right GameFans let's look back at the week that came to pass.  As always, feel free to check out the facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ZardozIndustries/ and the blog at http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/.  Let’s get started with our look back at the depths of Kickstarter

Week in Review 8/22/16

A week in review

All right game fans, we’re going to take a quick look back at the week that was.  Hopefully you find some things you like and some things you hadn’t seen.  Looking forward for this week, hopefully we will have some other new articles for your amusement.