This Week: Warlocks, Slugballs, & Foreshadowing!

Welcome to This Week, a weekly series where I discuss all the gaming (both video and tabletop) content I've played, made, prepped, run and seen that's cool this week.

Let's jump in with what I've done This Week...

What I've Played

A long time ago, in 1982, a book was published called The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. It was the first of a series called Fighting Fantasy, which were amazing gamebooks (like single-player roleplaying/choose-your-own-adventure games) that transported many people to the lands of Legend. For a young Ben Scerri, they were my first proper foray into a fantasy world, and from them I was hooked. (I also managed to pick up an original copy about a year ago, which I am still chuffed about...)

(Image from Gamebooks.org)

In 2016, an Australian games studio released The Warlock of Firetop Mountain as a video game, but replete with a working over. There's new content, characters, mechanics and stunning graphics done to look like miniatures on a gameboard. I began playing to this week, after my partner Kickstarter'd it for me as my 2015 birthday present. Just like the original, I was, and am, hooked! I'll be playing it more as I get the time, but you should all check it out. This isn't a review, but if you want to see how they took a gaming classic and revived it to be innovative and relevant to the modern day, then you'll be hard pressed to find a better game!

(Image from Tin Man Games)

What I've Made

Lots! This past week I've been making a roleplaying game system called Slugball, Sorcery & Secrets! which aims to model silly Discworld-esque Apprentice Wizards from various Colleges of Magic whilst they solve crimes, meddle in the affairs of their betters, deal with teenage angst, pass their exams, and ultimately play a Rugby-like magical game called "Slugball"! I was originally going to use Bubblegumshoe for this, but I found the system didn't really capture all the things I wanted it to.

(Image: Wizard stock art from Slugball, Sorcery & Secrets! from William McAusland)

So instead, spurred on my an inability to sleep, I hacked Apocalypse World and Ars Magica together to make this weird mini-game. I aim to run it for my regular group some time in the future (soon), and to publish it for free here.

I've also been working on some various LARP things, which I hope to tell you more about soon, but are at present secrets...

Speaking of LARP, though, our IndieGoGo for Blackpowder & Bloodlines is going along swimmingly! As of this writing, it's at 83%. We're doing amazingly well, thanks to all the support thus far, but we need just a little more to get us to our goal. If you live in Melbourne and want to interact with an amazing new LARP game, please check it out. Otherwise, if you just want to support people doing some pretty innovative things in gaming, please pop over to hear the better-written spiel!

(Image from Blackpower & Bloodlines)

That's all for This Week this week. I'll talk to you next week, and tell you of all my adventures again! In the mean time, fill your own week with as much awesome as possible.