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Officially licensed Mega Man board game blasts Kickstarter for mega bucks
Jasco Games took to Kickstarter to fund an officially-licensed Mega Man board game -called Mega Man The Board Game, appropriately enough - seeking $70,000 on the crowdfunding platform by January 19. After about 24 hours of life, it has already earned over $160,000. Our expert analysis leads us to deduce that people must really like Mega Man. The core version of the board game celebrates the Blue Bomber's 25th anniversary with nine colorless figurines, four of which are Mega Man, four robot masters and one Dr. Wily for $70. The $140 deluxe version adds Jasco Games' Time Man and Oil Man expansion to complement the game's multiple 40-card player decks, individual robot master game boards and dozens of token pieces. The board game creators set up 11 stretch goals to continue the crowdfunding campaign, starting at $80,000 and working up to $500,000, the latter adding a fresh coat of paint to every figure. It will add more goals as they unlock, and five have already been met, bringing about alternate Mega Man figures, Guts Man and Fire Man expansions.
Shadowrun Returns developer to Kickstart 'Golem Arcana' tabletop game in August
While the majority of Harebrained Schemes is still knee deep in developing content for its Kickstarted strategy-RPG Shadowrun Returns, which just launched today, a small team has already begun work on the developer's next project: Golem Arcana, a smartphone/tablet-assisted tabletop game. As explained by founder Jordan Weisman, Golem Arcana is set in a world where powerful Golems do the bidding of their creators, who infuse organic materials with magic in order to create obedient, deadly homunculi. A Kickstarter campaign will be launched sometime next month in order to fuel development, though Weisman did not say how much money the team is looking to raise. Golem Arcana's gameplay takes place on a physical battle map with figurines representing the golems, but the gameplay mechanics are calculated and implemented by a smartphone or tablet running an associated app. Using a proprietary stylus, players tap on the battle map or the figures to summon relevant information in the app. During battle, taping an ability and targeting a figure initiates combat inside of the app, which then spits out results and information about the turn.
Tim Keenan's paper prototypes invade the PAX East tabletop summit
A Virus Named Tom developer Tim Keenan stepped out of his comfort zone during PAX East – literally – to set up shop in the tabletop gaming summit, with two paper prototypes of ideas for his next big project. At the end of a long row, in the heart of tabletop territory, Keenan demonstrated the mechanics behind Scavenger, a top-down, rolling tower defense game set in space, and Chess the Gathering, which played exactly how it sounds and definitely won't have that name if it enters official development.Chess the Gathering featured an iPad showing off the game's digital prototype, including a level editor. The gameplay is a spatial representation of Magic the Gathering, on a chessboard and with a myriad of creatures and "twins." For a rundown of Chess the Gathering, check out Keenan's YouTube playlist, and sign up to get an early (digital) prototype here.Keenan convinced a pair of Magic fans to play Chess the Gathering, and as we talked, they remained riveted on the rudimentary gameboard, cards and characters. When they finished, they concluded that they loved it. "If this were a board game, I would buy it," one of them said.Scavenger tells the story of a Han Solo-esque character as he travels the galaxies looting spaceships, attempting to pay off his debt to vicious collectors. It's a top-down, tower defense game where the protagonist sits in his spacecraft and sends out drones to infiltrate the victim ships. The player defends his own ship from enemies, while directing drones throughout the other ships, in search of money. See the Scavenger playlist here.Keenan has a third game in the works, an action title that he said wouldn't work well as a paper prototype. He and his wife, Holly, plan to ask the community which project sounds best, and then launch a Kickstarter to develop that game under their studio, Misfits Attic. Currently, the Misfits are working on the Vita port of A Virus Named Tom.Check out the paper prototypes for Scavenger and Chess the Gathering in the gallery below.%Gallery-184608%
First Impressions: WarMage Battlegrounds
WarMage Battlegrounds, by developer Burst Online Entertainment, is as simple game that pops up in a window and requires no large downloads. At first, everything about the game is simple, from the character creation to the layout of the map. However, after spending some time in the game tweaking my army loadout, and worrying about how to get my WarMage's mana pool to refill faster, I have to say that there is quite a bit of in-depth strategy packed into this unassuming indie title. You play a WarMage, a caster-type who has been set into the world to defend and conquer other WarMages. Your weapons consist of a small army, creatures, and a hotbar filled with scrolls, artifacts, and spells, and you battle it out with other players and NPCs on sometimes large (but always manageable) maps. If you have played Pox Nora, a turn-based title from Sony Online Entertainment, then you will be familiar with WarMage Battlegrounds. But WarMage Battlegrounds does some things that are well ahead of Pox Nora, things that take strategy gaming to newer heights.
Card Hunter combines tabletop gaming with digital magic
Jon Chey is a co-founder of Irrational Games, who recently formed up a brand new studio called Blue Manchu, to work on a new game called Card Hunter. Card Hunter might easily be mistaken for many similar games of much lower quality: It's a Flash game that runs in your browser, and it's going to be a free-to-play title monetized by microtransactions, using collectible cards to fuel the gameplay.While Card Hunter may look shallow on the surface, it's anything but. Chey and his team have crafted what's essentially a love letter to tabletop gaming, combining mechanics usually meant for traditional board gaming (like game boards, cardboard cutouts, dice, and action cards) with a high-quality and well-designed video game.%Gallery-164200%
Mike Morhaime confirms BlizzCon is on for 2013
President and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Morhaime has confirmed the news everyone wanted to hear: There will definitely be a BlizzCon in 2013. Morhaime pointed out this year is a big year for Blizzard releases, so resources had to be focused on games rather than conventions. However, next year will see a return of BlizzCon and it should be back with a vengeance, according to Morhaime. Morhaime appeared on a recent episode of TableTop, Wil Wheaton's board game celebrity poker-style show that's featured on the Geek and Sundry YouTube channel created by Felicia Day. After playing a rousing game of Elder Sign, Morhaime did a quick interview about his history with Blizzard, Warcraft's development, gaming, and heavy metal, as well as the BlizzCon mention. When you're done watching the interview, pop in and take a look at the full episode of TableTop with Mike Morhaime, Felicia Day, and Bill Prady, co-creator and executive producer for The Big Bang Theory. Sure, it's not Warcraft, but it's a rollicking good time. [Thanks to Scott for the tip!]
Microsoft patent application could see a touchscreen tabletop that caters to the eye of the beholder
It's all about perspective. At least, that's what we've gleaned from a Surface skim (hard wink) of this Microsoft patent application. Filed back in December of 2010, the USPTO doc describes a touchscreen tabletop imbued with a "view-restrictive filter" that, presumably, projects content in an orientation specific to a user's viewing angle, switching between diffuse and transparent states. Unsure of just what that means? Imagine, then, an ordinary-looking glass conference table surrounded by suit-and-tie types that, at the flick of a finger, turns into multiple personal computing displays. Bear in mind, this is all conjecture based on some densely-worded legalese and the IP in question's still lingering in a governmental limbo. That said, there could come a day when the Office of the future (harder wink) could look a lot like this. In the tech industry, nothing's off the table (hardest wink).
Pathfinder Online blog on designing in the game and on the table
Pathfinder Online's Kickstarter project hits its goal this Friday, and that means the staff has been hard at work designing the game. That design includes both the world for players to explore and the module being released to Kickstarter backers. A new developer blog discusses designing the city of Thornkeep, both in the eponymous book and as a starting point for characters coming into the world of Pathfinder Online. According to writer Rich Baker, the first problem encountered during design was the fact that the book is written with Thornkeep as a somewhat lawless place, while Thornkeep in the MMO will be a starting point for new players. As a result, Thornkeep has a strong central leader with a capricious streak, enough to convey the sense of lawless air while still keeping things sufficiently safe for new entrants. The blog also discusses dungeon design for the book and the tech demo. If either one sounds interesting to you, you've still got a couple of days to jump on the Kickstarter wagon to help fund the development team.
Gunze's new touchscreen tech knows who's touching it
Touchscreens can't differentiate between you, your friend or your cat. Truth is, they're actually amazingly simple pieces of technology without much in the way of brains. A new type of display shown off at the International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference in Tokyo last week does imbue the panels with at least enough smarts to tell people apart. Gunze Ltd pairs a special capacitive screen with electrodes, which a user touches with one hand while interacting with a game or app. The immediate use would be for table-top arcade games, which would differentiate between up to four different players based on what particular circuit they complete when touching the screen. We wouldn't be shocked if a version of the tech started showing up in multi-player video poker machines and bar games relatively soon.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Forbidden Island
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Sean Wilson of international indie studio Button Mash Games explains how his iPad title, Forbidden Island, is contributing to the tabletop game's renaissance. What's your game called and what's it about? Forbidden Island is an iPad board game where one to four adventurers cooperate to capture the four ancient treasures hidden on a sinking island. As the game progresses, parts of the island sink into the ocean, making it more difficult to collect the treasures. The game is based on the award-winning board game designed by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright. How were you able to create a licensed game as a brand new indie company? This was really a combination of confidence and luck. We reached out to Matt Leacock, the original game designer, and expressed our interest in making the game. We created a small gameplay demo and explained our passion for the project and Matt put us in touch with Gamewright. They believed in our enthusiasm and plans for the game so they agreed to work with us. They gave us the freedom to take the game design in the directions we believed were best, but pushed us to reach further than we would have if we didn't have any outside feedback. The game has tons of improvements directly because of their ideas.
EXOdesk hands-on
You've seen it shown off in poorly lit YouTube clips, now see in a poorly lit hands-on video from our favorite tech blog. The fine folks at ExoPC invited us up to their suite at the Trump hotel (which, by the way, smells exactly like you'd imagine Donald Trump does) to spend some quality time with their desktop extension. The core of the system is a 37-inch 10-point multitouch screen connected to a reasonably powerful laptop. But it's the software that's the real star. The tabletop computer is running the company's custom UI which is built on HTML5. Unlike other table-top computers, you're expected to use it alongside a traditional mouse and keyboard -- not in place of it. There's a dedicated EXOstore that's home to apps, also encoded in HTML5 and designed to run on any machine with ExoUI -- be it the EXOdesk, a tablet or standard desktop PC. In our short time with the desk, we were actually pretty impressed with its responsiveness and intuitiveness. As to be expected there are still a few kinks to work and some tweaking to be done -- but nothing that's an absolute deal breaker. The company plans to release a development kit sometime in the first half of the year, accompanied by developer hardware courtesy of Viewsonic. For a few more impressions check out the video and gallery below.
First Impressions: UFO Online
I've written about UFO Online before. It should be obvious how much I am looking forward to this new browser-based, turn-based strategy combat game. When I got to sit down with representatives from publisher gamigo at E3 earlier this year, I felt that familiar old feeling that I used to get when shopping for tabletop gaming miniatures. There's something about controlling a squad of little dudes with guns, something that seems to resonate with my generation. Well, the board game has gone digital, and now we do not have to drive for miles and miles to get to the closest gaming shop and wade through six feet of nerddom just to hope that we aren't teamed up with players who really give the hobby a stereotypical bad name. Now we can digitally join up with fellow game geeks and have it out across worlds that fit in our browser. I was able to take a bit of a tour through UFO Online over the last week. So what did I find? Click past the cut and I'll let you know.
Video interview with Chris McDonough reveals more details on World of Darkness
There are a lot of gamers pretty interested in World of Darkness, and it's not hard to see why. The game is based in lore that's still hugely influential in the arena of tabletop gaming, and it's hard to imagine a developer better suited to labyrinthine political dramas than CCP. Machinima.com had a chance to chat with Chris McDonough during the recent Grand Masquerade, where McDonough revealed a few more tidbits about what the game would incorporate and how it would cater to existing fans of the property. As McDonough puts it, the overall goal is to bring some of the feel of the game's many LARP activities into the MMO space, with the focus on player and character interplay in a sandbox environment. The full interview also discusses the spread of the overall property, why the team decided to focus on vampires initially, and more about what players can expect from the game world. View the full interview after the break. [Thanks to Pilgrim for the tip!]
iTableous is a white iPhone 4 fit for a giant (video)
If you like flying unicorns, you probably love giant flying unicorns, right? Well, the white iPhone 4 has officially gone from myth to reality, but it seems some folks are still chasing the dream in a BIG way. Case in point: iTableous, an outsized tabletop bearing a striking resemblance to the long-awaited iOS handset. Unlike previous iPhone tables we've seen, this one doesn't support multi-touch -- a wireless keyboard and mouse hold the keys to navigating this behemoth -- but it does offer 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 500GB of internal storage, a 5.7 megapixel camera, 720p video recording, as well USB, HDMI and a good old 30-pin connector for hooking up the real-deal. What's more, this iPhone's a dual-booter, capable of running Mac OSX 10.6.7 (via Hackintosh) and Windows 7 Professional. If you're living at the tip of a beanstalk and need to shake that tired old 3GS, check out the video of iTableous in action after the break.
LED coffee table busts a multicolored move (video)
It might look like something out of MJ's Billie Jean, but this colorful LED array won't be under moonwalking foot -- that is, unless the party gets crunk. This colorful grid is actually a table top, brought to you by way of TI's MSP430 microcontroller, and it knows how to get down. The table is made up of 128 frosted glass cubes, each apparently capable of emitting 16 million colors. Its creators also produced a special beat-detection software, that could very easily have your furniture outshining the bumpers and grinders at your next party. If you're looking for a little extra something from your coffee table, you can find full build instructions at the source link below.
New Signal Process introduces BreakOut Stereo and Stomp for the most serious of iOS musicians
If your iPad or iPhone is set to play a starring role at your next, sold-out concert, you may want to check out two new, iOS-friendly interfaces from New Signal Process. Pictured above is NSP's BreakOut Stomp -- a die cast aluminum-encased pedal that promises to transmit guitar signals to and from your iDevice, without any unwanted distortions or detection interference. All you have to do is slide the stompbox into your pedal board, hook it up to your iPhone's headphone jack and fire up your favorite recording or mixing apps. Whereas the stomp was designed with guitarists in mind, the recently unveiled BreakOut Stereo is geared more toward the DJ demographic. The device offers essentially the same iOS-interfacing capabilities of its pedal-based counterpart, serving as a portable conduit between an iPad and an amp or tabletop unit. Boasting two mono output jacks, this little guy can also be used with guitars, mics or mixing boards and is durable enough to survive the rough and tumble of your next world tour. As far as prices go, the BreakOut Stomp is selling for $155, whereas the Stereo will set you back $135. Groove past the break to see an image of the latter, or hit the source link to find out how to order one.
Arcade Table's Stealth brings high design, crazy price tag to tabletop arcade
The tabletop arcade market isn't exactly a crowded one these days, and for the most part we'd say that's for good reason -- remember those Pac-Man-induced neck spasms? Then again, most arcade tables don't look like this. The Stealth console system from the aptly-named Arcade Tables offers 60 classic games, including Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Galaga, in a high gloss cocktail table, sporting an HD LCD screen with an 89-degree viewing angle, built-in speaker system, and two-player controls. Okay, so the thing costs $3,300, which is more than a touch too rich for our blood, but wouldn't it be nice if more throwback consoles looked a little more, well, Stealth-y.
WAR40K throws down the gauntlet
Other MMOs are predictable, lazy and lack the real "feel" of combat -- or so says Vigil Games' founder Dave Adams. In a recent PC Gamer article, Adams and Creative Director Mike Maza share their vision for Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online -- and it's all about bucking the industry standard. Adams had a few strong words for Vigil's competition: "A lot of developers see that as an opportunity to cut that corner because there's so much to do on an MMO. They think people care about X, Y and Z. They don't really care about the feeling of the combat... Our goal is when some guy's walking past DMO they won't instantly know it's an MMO. That depends on a minimal interface: it's not a full FPS but it looks more 'actiony'." The devs confirmed that there would be a wide range of combat features in this action-based title, including fierce melee brawls, intense ranged firefights -- and no action bar icons of which to speak. The team is working hard to recreate the tabletop's iconic world into a virtual one, designing guns (stubber and bolter firearms) and player-controlled vehicles (Titan mechs and Predator tanks) to look deadly, used and WAR40Kish. The game will kick players into the fight almost immediately. "There's scenarios that introduce you to your character class. We'll throw you into your very first instance, to get a feel for a very player directed experience. Then you'll go to your trainers and merchants, then drop down onto the over-world from orbit," Maza said. You can read the full article at PC Gamer.
App Review: Battle Map lets you create huge worlds in small doses
The essence of a role playing game is, well, ... playing a role. Theoretically, you can play a tabletop RPG with not much more than your thoughts, a rule book or two, and some dice. In practice, though, an entire industry is engaged in releasing products to make imagining and inhabiting fantastical worlds a multimedia experience. Maps, adventures, miniatures, special dice, decks of item cards, and so much more are readily available. The latest entry is a full-featured iPad and iPhone app called Battle Map [US$29.99], which is now available on your iPad or iPhone as a Universal app. At 30 bucks, Battle Map is not cheap compared to most App Store offerings, but look at it against the similar Mac (or PC) program Dundjinni, which costs $39.99, or the PC-only map program called ProFantasy, which tops out at $605 for the whole shebang. Of course, these programs can do a lot more than Battle Map can, but they've also been around for many years. Perhaps in 2015, Battle Map will be as full-featured. In any case, other reviewers have called Battle Map "geek heaven" and a "must have," so read on to see if these words of praise apply to you. %Gallery-104489%
Settlers of Catan in development for Microsoft Surface, still can't help you trade sheep for wood (video)
It's a pretty well-known fact that The Settlers of Catan / Die Siedler von Catan is fantastic fun, and though the original board game has seen a few digital incarnations, all the cutthroat hexagonal colonization sim ever really needed was a giant screen with multitouch. MayFair Games let Vectorform build this version for Microsoft Surface, which is on display at the Origin Games Fair this week; CNET reports the final version will be available this August. Good luck finding enough resources to trade for the table to play it on. Video after the break, more details at our source links.
