From The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity from the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris, by Andrea Wulf (Knopf, 2026), Kindle pp. 91-92: After losing sight of the Resolution among the Antarctic icebergs, Captain Furneaux had sailed the Adventure to Tasmania, a large island about 150 miles south of Australia which the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman had sighted and visited in 1642. The French had landed there in 1772, but the Adventure was the first British ship to anchor. For a few days they…
This is a review and preview of two incremental games, Progress Racer RPG and Maktala. Played with a retail key and demo build, respectively.
This comic was originally funded by members of my Patreon, to whom I am endlessly grateful. If you like it and want to see more, why not become a member yourself? The post Greebo Chapter 6: Showdown, Part 1 appeared first on Other Strangeness — merritt k.
Brumble Quest is a peculiar inclusion in Plaid Hat’s catalog. Unlike their other touchstones, whether expandable duelers like Ashes and Summoner Wars or comedy adventures in the vein of Forgotten Waters, it’s a diminutive thing with minimal components, a ten-minute playtime, and — oh yeah — it only sells in sync with big conventions. Fortunately, that means during conventions, not at them; online ordering is still a possibility for those of us unable or unwilling to make the annual pilgrimage…
Something I didn't realize before I plunged into the tabletop blog scene is that the term "game design" is fraught. It's partially fraught because nearly every hobbyist has their own definition of game, and it doesn't help that most people have their own pet definitions of design, so we have something on the order of n log(n) competing standards for what game design is. Having a language of game design does not guarantee that you will be able to design good or interesting games in the same way…
I went to Between Two Cons in sunny Portland, Oregon! There have already been a lot of great recaps, and I think they've all done a wonderful job capturing the atmosphere, so I'll skip trying to summarize the event itself and instead share a few of my favorite moments. I kicked off the weekend by dropping off print copies of A Familiar Tower for Skullboy to sell at his merchant table. I feel incredibly lucky that both he and Tony, over at the PlusOneExp booth, were excited enough about the…
Although I publish this review now, I played this game more than 10 years ago, and I’m now just re-playing parts of it for fun, for nostalgia and to be able to take screenshots and videos, which were taken during play sessions over the last few days. Celebrate speed, music and style at the Forza Horizon Festival. From the makers of the highest-rated racing franchise of this generation, Forza Horizon combines legendary Forza authenticity with the freedom of the open road. youtube • video ID:…
MARVEL GIRL MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ) “Blasting out of the Marvel Universe are its most powerful heroines, the She-Force! Joining together to fight evil are mutants Marvel Girl, Wolfsbane and Dazzler along with Avengers Tigra and Ms. Marvel. Challenging the threat of the Brotherhood of evil Mutants, the She-Force has what it takes to get the job done. Using their combined abilities, the She-Force takes down the Brotherhood in one explosive battle!” In a nice bit of segue from last week’s…
Back in 2016, my good friend Asslessman painted up one of Jes Goodwin's Nurgle champions as part of his scavvy gang. The idea has stuck with me ever since, and I've blatently copied it (with his blessing!).Read more »
Yesterday, technically was the 100th Anniversary since the first run of the Atlantic Coast Express, known as the ACE, although no new train service was actually introduced, the 11am from Waterloo on Monday 19th July 1926 was the first service to carry the ACE name, hence posting today rather than yesterday. This is a version of my Talking Stock #28 post here to mark the anniversary. The last ACE left Padstow in Cornwall on 5 September, on the last day of the 1964 summer timetable. Merchant Navy…
A deep time collection - links posted on various discords as recommendations when the topic came up. Taking this as the 'stands the test of time' quality filter, here they are. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. modified with the approval of creator Evlyn Moreau One Man and his Dice gives us The Secret Brilliance of The Black Hack A Knight at the Opera gives us Not All Crunch Is the Same Wampus Country gives us An…
Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath. Oni is an 8 page module for Mothership by Jamie Heitler with art by Thomas Heitler. In it you sneak onto a mob boss’s ship, while avoiding a hallucinating AI. I think I was given a comp copy by the…
1990 Clockwize Platform: Amstrad CPC (possibly ZX Spectrum too) Next into the Games That Weren’t archives is an Amstrad CPC game that never was, called Storm Force. The game was a RNLI simulation which had graphics created by Lee Burns and code by Jeremy Fowler. Unfortunately, it seems that only a few test routines were completed and just some graphic screens were produced which you can see here. These were recovered thanks to Dean Hickingbottom from a CPC disk. There was some code, but it was…
...well, it's not much of a grind. I've started playing Z-A again, this time to finish the "Mega Dimension" DLC. The DLC introduces a kind of weird, instanced, dungeon-run style experience to the game. The game spawns a bunch of randomized, timed challenges all over the map. You spend a resource to enter each challenge; the value of the resource you spend determines how long you have - in minutes and seconds! - to complete the challenge inside the map. There's a smallish number of total maps,…
★★★☆: A compact, classic-Zelda inspired adventure game. I like that it followed the classic formula well: 4 little dungeons, each with an upgrade and a boss.True to its word, there's no fluff. A single collectable, a linear series of areas, and few NPCs to talk with. I appreciate when games make a point to streamline their gameplay in useful ways. Much like Shapez distilled Factorio, removing elements helps what remains shine. The graphics and sound effects represent their inspiration well and…
Back the Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster Kickstarter! Our Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster continues to march on! If you haven't, please check out the campaign, enjoy the free 36 page PDF preview, and, if you dig it, support the project. Backing this Kickstarter is one of the best ways to support the work we do here at Sly Flourish. If you're already backing the project, please, share it with your friends! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slyflourish/rise-of-the-lazy-game-master?ref=2…
Needless to say, I've been very remiss in writing new posts for this blog, even within the context of the less rigorous schedule I proposed two months ago. I wish I had a better excuse beyond "I'm busy revising Thousand Suns for a second edition," except that's the truth. In fact. I've been so busy with that that I haven't even been posting as often at Grognardia Games Direct as I have been. On the plus side, the first draft of the second edition is nearly done, so I at least having something…
Rajas of the Ganges is a 2017 game from Inka and Markus Brand, who made the Exit series. It was nominated for and won several awards. It was well received by gamers. I wasn't very interested to try it when it was hot, because it sounded like just another worker placement game, with dice. It was suggested at a recent game retreat, so I joined the game. It turned out to be much more
It's the ceremonials! And the emphasis being very much on the British Guards, but there are others, and among them a couple of really interesting figures, and one diminutive chap who is jostling for best of show! Marx recycling-fodder, better than cannon-fodder, they may still become something useful! But shown for completeness, I used to just show the highlights of donations or show plunder
[Equations in this post may not look right (or appear at all) in your RSS reader. Go to the original article to see them rendered properly.] Yesterday I watched the most recent Numberphile video, in which Ben Sparks explains a few finite series and the equations that simplify the calculation of their sums. He derives the formulas graphically, and it’s all very cleverly done, especially the one for the sum of cubes. The idea is to get a simple polynomial expression in n for N=∑m=1nm3 As I said,…
There’s only one recording today, and it’s a repeat of Pokemon Battle Dimension – A Lean Mean Team Rocket Machine. Media Centre Description: Ash continues his quest to become the greatest Pokemon trainer ever. He travels through the Sinnoh region, where he is challenged in a number of thrilling battles. [S] Recorded from CITV on Saturday 10th April 2010 11:28 The recording ends with the start of Prove It! Here’s the ad breaks. Adverts: Fliker Albert Bartlett Rooster Potatoes – Toy Story 3 Match…
These 3d printed doors are some that I found on some site some time in the past, and I don't recall when or where or who the designer was. I printed them at 0.2mm layers on my Ender 3, and painted them with some home-made washes.The tall one in the middle is the original design, but I enshortened it, mainly for the sake of cutting its print time in half. The figures are the flat card standees from OkumArts that I've taken to using these days. The doors themselves could also just be…
What do you think about gaming in the late 90’s – early 2000’s? The PlayStation? The Nintendo 64? Maybe later SuperFX SNES games like Yoshi’s Island? Well, too bad. You’re not getting any of those, but you can get a portable game console in a church fundraiser. No, it’s not a Game Boy Color either, but hey, it’s got hundreds of games built right in! How bad could it be? Talking Brick Game At least the fundraiser sprung for the fancy “talking” model. This is a pretty typical model, though I…
Adventurers Character Race Class Description Alaric Human Paladin level 3 Big, doe eyed country boy with wavy blond hair and willingness to do the right thing. Paladin of Tyr. Ambros Human Cleric level 7 Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time. Beorg the Gravedigger Human Fighter level 5 Inspired to adventure after burying several adventurers. Drokh Human Monk level 2 A tall, lean human monk with piercing eyes, weathered skin, and a warrior’s poise—calm and charismatic, he speaks with purpose and…
For the last three years, I've run a Planescape1 campaign through almost all of its modules. Now, after successfully finishing it, I want to look back and review these adventures, highlighting the pros and cons of each one. Each module will be rated in three categories, up to 3 points in each: Presentation: how easy it is to understand and run the adventure. Openness: how open the adventure's scope is, regarding the freedom of choice. Quality: Overall quality of the adventure, including the…
The first long campaign adventure for D&D 5.5, Deadfall, is coming out from Wizards of the Coast in September. Deadfall is a level 11-20 adventure set in the land of Thay, a downtrodden land ruled by the archlich Szass Tam. I joked on Discord that it would be fun to blitz through the first ten levels in ten one-hour sessions. They laughed! They said it couldn’t be done! So that’s what we’re doing. We should be just the right level when the campaign is officially released. (No, I don’t know…
I’ve had my eye on the Solo Game of the Month series by publisher Best With One for a while now. The concept is quite intriguing: every month, there is a new crowdfunding project that brings a new (or a re-skinning of an existing) solo game, usually in a compact box and for a very reasonable price. Between the end of the campaign and the product actually landing on your doorstep, there is usually just a couple months because the game design and art is already finished when going into the…
Released more than a year after the original game hit arcades, Bloody Roar 2 stands as an improvement on almost everything its prequel had. It’s often considered a favorite by series fans, and while it’s more of a matter of taste, it’s certainly a valid perspective to take. It certainly competes a lot better with ...Bloody Roar 2 was first posted on July 19, 2026 at 10:14 am.©2017-2025 "Hardcore Gaming 101". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this…
Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades. Porky Draws gives us (by which I mean, gives the world, not us particularly, we’re just pointing to it as usual) an epilogue to the Banjo-Kazooie games (2 minutes) where persistent enemy Gruntilda (who is active and alive and everything) casts spells on Banjo and Kazooie’s internet connections. It’s pretty short, but I feel the effort should be recognized for the excellent…
