Brian Holland

by Brian Holland

The Con, rightly refereed to as “the best four days in gaming”, saw nearly 70,000 unique attendees, sold more 4-day badges than any other year, and had a record-breaking 538 exhibitors and an all-time high 19,600 ticketed events.

That’s right- even if you were lucky enough to be one of the 70,000 gamers at the show, there is now way you were going to be able to see everything- so we’re gonna give you our highlight reel! 

Dwarven Forge Debut Their Latest

Dungeon Master Nate Taylor lead a star-studded party of adventurers through a portal into Hell in pursuit of a forlorn princess.

dwarven forgeThe party, -which included Luke Gygax, son of the legendary Gary Gygax, D&D All-Star Satine Phoenix, WWE Smackdown star Ember Moon and Dwarven Forge’s own Stefan Porkorny-, descended into Hell atop Dwarven Forge’s latest terrain masterpiece.

The company known for stellar sculpts and next-level modular terrain design have outdone themselves with this new set featuring the lava-spewing hell-scape of Avernus (or indeed any of the other levels of Hell).

Dungeon Master and member of the Dwarven Forge, Nate Taylor, once again outdid himself with an original (tightly timed!) one-shot adventure, peppered with humorous performances and simple but evocative props which had the audience and players in raucous guffaws.

The new terrain set, fittingly dubbed “Hellscape”, will be perfect for anyone looking to take their dungeon-delving to the next level, especially with the upcoming release of Descent into Avernus- which is available for preorder at Good Games right now!

 

 Good Games Publishing

The Publishing wing of Good Games that brought you Unfair and Guild Master launched two new games at GenCon this year.fluttering souls

The first being Fairy Season, an extremely cute and surprisingly deep card game were a group of players compete to capture as many fairies as possible, all the while playing dastardly goblin cards, and switching the seasons to mess with their opponents.

The second game, Fluttering Souls, sees players collect matching butterfly cards that have varying points, pairings and abilities. The game only takes a few minutes to play, and ideally players will play best of five- the replay value is especially high, as the set up of the tableau is unique every time!

Both games launched to a resounding success, with demos running across all four days of the con- and Fluttering Souls sold out!

Both games will be available through Good Games soon, so order today!

Marvel Boards The Fantasy Flight

The annual showcase from Fantasy Flight Games, the In-Flight Report, was hosted on the eve of GenCon in Indianapolis.

marvel 1Having announced massive titles like KeyForge in 2018, FFG had given themselves some huge shoes to fill- but who were we to ever doubt this powerhouse of tabletop gaming?

Yes- the rumours were true, and Fantasy Flight have acquired the license for Marvel! Two brand new game lines will launch before the end of the year: A new co-operative Living Card Game (the model coined and perfected by FFG), as well as Marvel: Crisis Protocol, a miniatures game featuring high-quality, hard plastic sculpts of your favourite heroes!

Designed by Will Pagani and Will Shick, formerly of Privateer Press, Crisis Protocol features a sleek design with all the tokens and widgets of an FFG game, with the tactical prowess and skill cap of Warmachine.

You can check out a live-play demo of Crisis Protocol over on the Good Games Australia page right now!

And what’s more? Both the upcoming LCG and Crisis Protocol are available to preorder from your local Good Games store!

So You Wanna Be A Cyberpunk? 

While the digital games industry is positively frothing at the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red (YOU’RE breathtaking!), the folks behind the original Cyberpunk 2020 at R. Talsorian Games launched the beginner box for talsorianthe new edition: Cyberpunk Red.

The Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit was a GenCon sell-out, with stock rationed out over all four days, with a limit of 2 per customer and lines of over one hundred punters at a time anxious to get their hands on the new product.

Fresh off the press, the Jumpstart Kit gives players everything they need to dive into the world of Cyberpunk- two beautiful soft cover books, a bunch of ready-made characters (that still allow for a bit of customisation), evocative grid maps and punch-out standees, as well as a set of official Cyberpunk Red dice from our friends at Q Workshop.

Keep your eye on Good Games in the coming weeks as we gear up for the wider release of the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit- and I’ll be giving the product a deeper dive in an upcoming article!

The Stars Were Right At The ENnies

The 19th annual Ennie awards- the “Oscars of the RPG industry”, were held at the historic Union Station in downtown Indianapolis during GenCon.

Hosted by Melbourne’s own Mark Morrison, the far-and-away stand out this year were our friends at Chaosium- the masterminds behind Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Pendragon, and the recently acquired 7th sea.

chaosium enniesChaosium won an award in every category they were nominated, including Fan Favourite Publisher. The highlights in my opinion being the epic, globe-trotting campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep, winning Best Adventure, and Best Rules going to the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. So, if you’re yet to sink your teeth into some of the brilliant Chaosium games we’ve spoken about in the past- the results are in, and you’re officially missing out! Try them today! 

 

We’ll have more GenCon focussed news coming to you in the next few weeks- with highlights on Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Cyberpunk Red, and the hotly anticipated ALIEN RPG coming from ENnie award winning publisher Free League!

 For all this and more- you’re already in the right place; here at Good Games!