CWF Game Cast

We’ve long been a supporter of the local gaming scene. This is evidenced by our publicity for Danger Planet in Waltham and Battleground Games in Abington along with the recent inclusion of Griffon Games in Greenfield.

The other day at Battleground I heard talk about one of the regulars starting a gaming company. With some research I came across Imperium Star Games, the brainchild of Adam McLaughlin. He has a lot of drive and we’re more than happy to do our part in helping Adam succeed with his dream.

Imperium Star Games (ISG for short) is a nice company. Right now they’re looking for an artist (e-mail Artwork [at] imperiumstargames [dot] com) to create the artwork for their first game titled The Joust. According to the official ISG site The Joust is “a game of jousting knights.” Players get to “take on the role of a knight in the Tournament of the King, Jousting to win the purse, the girls and mostly the Honor of being Tournament Champion.”

The Medieval Ages is great era for gaming, just look at the success of Dungeons & Dragons, and knights and jousting are a time honored entity that always attracts attention. Anyone who has ever been to King Richard’s Faire knows the excitement of jousting.

In conversation with Adam I learned that a mid-summer ‘08 release is expected for the game. There’s still lots to do but this devotion to detail is a positive sign. Too often gaming companies will rush product to the shelves that is inferior. ISG is making sure to put its best foot forward with The Joust.

To help bring The Joust into production ISG has made the classic t-shirt (at left) available for pre-order. Priced at just $15, I’ve paid more for band shirts from the mall, the shirt is a slimming black with the ISG logo in green. Black looks good on everyone and as one gamer speaking from experience we, gamers, tend to be under or overweight and black makes us look nice. The logo is pretty awesome too. Pre-order your shirts now at ISG Pre-Order T-shirts. All the details are there and yes ISG takes the usual cash, check, money order, and Paypal.

I know Adam appreciates all interest in ISG. Be sure to go to the ISG Contact Page to send them an e-mail. You can also hang out at the official Message Board. Adam hangs at Battleground Games in Abington usually on Sundays. Be sure to pop in, buy some product from Derek, and talk to Adam about ISG. Make sure you tell him that the CWF Game Cast sent you.

We look forward to sharing more news about ISG with you in the future. Don’t be surprised if Adam himself makes an appearance here on the CWF Game Cast. And, don’t forget to pre-order those shirts!

written by ^Raven^

Tags

Board/Card Games, Imperium Star Games, People, The Joust.

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Many moons ago, back in May and June 07, I discussed the future of gaming in 3 articles (see Games Workshop New Store & The Future of Gaming, Addendum: The Future of Gaming 2, and GW Store Closing, Patents, and The Future of Gaming 3) inspired by Ryan S. Dancey’s blog.

Now, Mr. Dancey, has done it again with one of his predictions coming true or so he says in his article Followup: Game Industry Predictions III. He originally predicted that either Hasbro or Mattel would purchase “…a hobby gaming company, likely a trading card game publisher…” by the end of 2007. Mattel recently bought Apple to Apple, by Out of Box games, along with some other games. Mr. Dancey uses that as proof that his prediction is correct.

So far so good, right? Wrong, or at least partially. He predicted it was likely that Mattel or Hasbro would buy a trading card game publisher. Upper Deck (Yu-Gi-Oh and World of Warcraft) is a prime example of this. Instead, Mattel bought a few games by Out of Box. They didn’t even acquire the entire company.

I know even Nostradamus had his off days and that Mr. Dancey predicted a “hobby gaming company” with a concentration on trading card games. BUT, Mattel not only didn’t buy a trading card game company they didn’t even buy a hobby gaming company. They acquired a few games and that’s it.

Mr. Dancey I have to say that so far this prediction is untrue. If Mattel buys all of Out of Box I’ll grudgingly give you a correct prediction. Even though Out of Box isn’t a trading card company it is still a hobby gaming company.

There’s no denying that Mattel buying Apple to Apple is news but that doesn’t equate your prediction coming to fruition. I think a more appropriate title for your blog article would have been, “Followup: Game Industry Predictions III…Sorta, if you squint and tilt your head sideways.”

written by ^Raven^

Tags

apples to apples, Board/Card Games, mattel, People.

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Come join us at Games Workshop’s Games Day, Los Angeles on Saturday, August 11th, 2007. We will be hosting The Pacific Marauders’ FLYING CIRCUS - It is an Aerial Combat game, Fantasy Battle Style! It is an all-original, easy to learn, fast paced game of 3 dimensional combat high above the earth. All the flying units of our favorite fantasy games will see battle in the skies. Pick a side, come to the table and play! Here’s a taste of what you can play:

The Good Guys: Skinks on Terradons, Warhawk Riders escorting a Giant Eagle, Knights and Wizards on Pegasi, A Warrior Priest on a Gryphon, A Paladin on a Hippogryph, and a Squadron of Dwarven Gyrocopters!

The Bad Guys: Chaos Wizard on a Disk of Tzeench escorted by Screamers, A Zombie Dragon, Orc Warlord on a Wyvern, Beastmaster on a Manticore, A Balrog, and a Fellbeast!
Then there are those unscrupulous sell-swords, the Ogre Doomdivers! Yes, that’s right, I said Ogre Doomdivers. That can’t be good!!

Gameplay is fast, each game should take 30 min to 1 hour, so you can try it out many times, and still have time to see everything else going on at Games Day.

This completes our goal of having Games Day tables that cover land, sea and air!
2005 - 40K Big Game Hunt kill team table -Best Club Table (Land)
2006 - Marauder Island Fantasy Ship Battle (Sea)
What to do next year…maybe Space?

Our website and forum: www.pacificmarauders.com

written by Mordante

Tags

Miniatures Games, People, Warhammer Fantasy.

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Back on May 31st I wrote Games Workshop New Store & The Future of Gaming. It drew heavily from then recent conversations I had with game store owners and a great blog article, Predictions: 2007: The Game Industry, written by Ryan S. Dancey.

On June 1st I wrote Addendum: The Future of Gaming 2. That released new information, with my observations, drawn from another Ryan S. Dancey article entitled Followup: 2007 Game Industry Predictions 2.

If you haven’t read those articles before I suggest you do. They provide the background information to bring you up to date for this article.

In Massachusetts there are 3 Games Workshop stores. One is in Harvard Square in Cambridge, yes near that Harvard. One is in Danvers in the Liberty Tree Mall. The last one is in Natick in the Natick Mall. I found out last night that GW Harvard Square will be closed within a week. A close friend of mine is friends with one of that store’s employees who passed on the information. To verify the information I went to the forum of Danger Planet Games and found they have a GW Store in Harvard Square closing. Please read that thread for more information.

I don’t know the reason for GW Harvard Sq.’s closing but I do know there is a sign in the window telling people to go to Danger Planet for good gaming and GW products. There is irony here because GW has screwed Danger Planet over so many times that GW and DP are in somewhat of a feud, or so my friends term it. As such DP has removed all GW product from their store excepting a small section at the back of the store for some 40k product.

Continue reading »

written by ^Raven^

Tags

40k, Board/Card Games, Collectible Cards, Collectible Minis, LotR, People, Warhammer Fantasy.

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Like everyone who subscribes to the Webway, GW’s online e-newsletter, I was alerted to the opening of a new store in Oak Park, Illinois. The announcement declared the grand opening wouldn’t occur when GW originally promised. I won’t get into the irony of a GW store grand opening not happening when promised right now.

I also won’t get into my surprise at GW opening a store in Oak Park. I’ve never heard of Oak Park before and I don’t keep abreast of GW’s growth of retail stores. I was, however, amazed on reading that GW is opening another store.

Back in January, the Guardian Unlimited (a newspaper from the U.K.) had a story about GW’s profit warning. In that article it is stated that GW opened 15 new retail stores in the first half (of the fiscal year) and closed 8 of those. This means that Games Workshop is able to only keep less than 50% of new stores open. With odds like this the store in Oak Park has a 1 in 2 chance of closing even before its grand opening, which will be June 21st, and what kind of business model is that for a company?

Continue reading »

written by ^Raven^

Tags

40k, Board/Card Games, Collectible Cards, Collectible Minis, LotR, People, Warhammer Fantasy.

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