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This is Audio EXP for the 4th of May and the episode title is “Cosmic visions”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #240]
[Also on Stitcher | Spotify | Apple]
Calamity Punk Publishing won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
You’re one of the elite. You know about Calamity Punk Publishing’s success, but they don’t. Not yet. I’ll be tracking them down and beginning the usual rites and rituals to get in touch.
I’m going to return to what’s happening with the Spotlight this month, but since we’re talking about rituals, I want to jump on the important one happening today.
Today is the 4th of May, or May the 4th, which means Star Wars Day, and we spun up a megathread. Honestly, Star Wars Day is becoming a bit of a shopping season.
No complaints. I mean, I have no willpower and can never save my money or stop eating, so I might as well get things on the cheap. On the blog you’ll find a link to Fun.com that gets you 10% off. You can also use the code “STAR-WARS-5” to get %5 off Zatu and “maythe4th” at All Rolled Up, both of which sell RPGs, dice and tabletop games.
Perhaps the biggest temptation is the most unexpected: Gourmet popcorn company Joe and Seph are letting people pick either Light or Dark as coupons to get a free gift. I’ve resisted both the light side and the dark side, but only just.
Now, let’s tear the spotlight away from the Star Wars franchise and back to indie RPG companies. There are five candidates for June.
There’s Elven Foundry, the publisher behind Many Tales, a sidequest supplement for D&D.
There are Milestone Heroes, who sell many Dragonbite-compatible STL minis.
Also, there’s Vindicta RPG who publish not just the Vindicta game but Disco and Cthulhu Unleashed.
Patrons can also vote for Gildor Games, who publish the Platinium best seller Elemental RPG.
Lastly, the final slot goes to Ganesha Games, which has such titles as Echoes of the Dead, Twisted Dungeons, and Four Against Darkness.
We’re going to stick with indie RPG publishers for a bit longer because this week, we also got to talk to Sarah Newton. Sarah Newton ran Mindjammer Press but due to family bereavements and life shaping challenges it was beginning to look as the publishing company would fade away with projects unfinished.
However, Sarah stepped up and the newly formed Typhon Games stepped forward. The result was a merger and Sarah coming onboard as a director.
The newly enhanced publisher got The Chronicles of Future Earth out, to backers and into retail. You can buy it now.
Sarah calls the game cosmic fantasy which, in this case, means epic dooms, summoning demons and dealing with ancient technologies and dimension-hopping weirdness.
You can read about this vision of a cosmic future in the interview with Sarah on the blog.
We also talked to Alexander Marc Yanis the CEO of MoMoDi and designer of eXistential eSsential. Let’s call that XS from now on in.
XS is on Kickstarter right now, and funded, it’s a game that merges cyberpunk with cosmic horror.
In this game, many people opt to live in a fantasy augmented reality rather than deal with the bleakness that the world is ending. Azathoth is waking and we’re falling into the being’s dream.
Do you know what else has ended? DriveThruRPG’s PocketQuest. Did you get anything?
This week, we featured Pocket Aces, which is a game of psychic heists, and which was one of the hidden gems you can find. Pocket Aces uses a deck of cards rather than dice.
We also wrote up Blueberry Wine, another PocketQuest title, but this time a horror hexcrawl.
Blueberry Wine is a solo RPG that adapts the Trophy rules.
https://www.geeknative.com/166100/crunchyroll-celebrates-ani-may-again-with-merch-free-anime-and-exclusive-events/Stepping out of RPGs for a bit and with our eyes focused on the new month we have Ani-May. Crunchyroll, the anime platform, did this last year and I guess it worked well enough for a return.
In Ani-May, Crunchyroll and partners are doing takeovers and specials. For example, here in the UK 120 HMV stores are offering early anime releases, competitions including one to win VIP access to Japan Expo, and freebies.
Bronwen picked up the big Atari story for us this week. What’s the computer and anime giant doing? Well, for the first time, I think, it’s doing tabletop games. Atari are inviting fans to contribute ideas to their centipede-themed game via a project called Club Made.
Let’s see how that works out. Tabletop games are very hard to muscle into.
Lastly, for this week, there’s a megabundle of ProFantasy cartography software at the Bundle of Holding. If you’re building a world, cities or even dungeons and want them to look exactly right, then this is an affordable DIY solution.
On that note, may the force be with you, and I’ll see you next week.
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