Archive for the ‘Galileo Games’ Category

Coming Soon: Blood Red Sands

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

 

Blood Red Sands is an all new role-playing game coming soon to Galileo Games. The setting is a savage and brutal world of dark sorcery, a world where the five Witch Kings of Abalahn slew the very gods and have reigned for a thousand years. Blood Red Sands is a game of competitive role-playing, where powerful heroes confront the terrible might of the Witch Kings of Abalahn. Only one hero will reach her goal. Will she throw down the Witch King, and if she does, will she take the place of the defeated tyrant on his throne? Blood Red Sands is a game for three to five players set in a brutal world of swords and sorcery. In each round, a hero is eliminated until only one remains. Will it be yours?

Blood Red Sands is written by Ralph Mazza and is currently in production with Galileo Games.

How To Keep Up With Galileo Games

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

Galileo Games
This year, Galileo Games is putting out a variety of new products, launching our fiction line and releasing new supplements for Bulldogs! and Mortal Coil. Not only that, but we have more opportunities for artists, writers, and game designers this year than ever before, and we’re going to a number of conventions to show off all these new things.

How do you keep up with our new releases, requests for submissions and announcements? We’ve made a number of channels for interested people to keep up with what we’ve been doing. One of the best ways is to subscribe to this blog, where we will give regular, detailed updates about new and upcoming releases and well as guidelines for submissions.

Subscribe by adding our feed to your RSS reader: SUBSCRIBE

Another easy way to keep up with our announcements is to like our page on facebook where we regularly link to the blog and to events and posts our contributors are involved in.

Following @brennantaylor and @jrblackwell on twitter is a good way to keep up with Brennan Taylor and J.R. Blackwell, though there may be a lot more on those feeds than just information about Galileo Games.

If you think you missed a blog post with an announcement, or want to just check up on our current call for submissions checking our Newest Releases, Submissions and Conventions pages will always give you up to date information about what we’re doing.

Book Trailer: Have Blaster, Will Travel

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

Have Blaster, Will Travel  is a collection of action-packed space adventures based in the Bulldogs! universe. The authors on this project include Greg Stolze, Nathan Lowell, Eddy Webb, Gareth-Michael Skarka, Nathan Crowder, Jared Axelrod and Mur Lafferty. More information about Have Blaster, Will Travel, how to pre-order your own copy, will be coming soon.

To watch a larger version of the trailer, or pick up the code to embed on your own site, you can view it here: http://vimeo.com/38047102

Sale at DriveThruRPG

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

DriveThruRPG is having a sale, and the PDF’s of Shelter in Place, Bulldogs! and many of Galileo’s supplements are 25% off. This sale will only last till March 7th so hit it soon if you want to save:  DriveThruRPG Sale

The Lost: A Kingdom of Nothing Anthology

Monday, March 5th, 2012

Are you a writer who can write compelling stories with interesting characters? Can you create memorable characters who shine from the page? Do you want to participate in an anthology where the profits will go towards charity? Then you may be interested in submitting to The Lost, an anthology with fiction based on the game, Kingdom of Nothing.  Below are the submission guidelines for The Lost, including payment, the setting, and what Galileo looks for in submissions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Submission Guidelines for The Lost:

Galileo Games is an award-winning publisher of games and fiction. We are currently accepting submissions to The Lost, an anthology based on the game Kingdom of Nothing.  We are looking for fiction from writers in the fantasy and literary genre who are interested in writing moving stories about characters that have lost everything.

Submissions:  Submissions to The Lost must have strong, character-focused stories. Fantasy, surrealism, a literary approaches are all welcome. The Lost are stories that take place in the slums and back alleys all over the world. These stories will tell of a malignant force born out of apathy and fed by despair that swallows everyone who slips though the cracks. Writers familiar with the setting of Kingdom of Nothing are preferred.

Format: Submitted work should be formatted with the title of the piece and the authors name in the title of the document. Fiction should be sent as attachments of a Word or txt file.  Send your finished story of two to eight thousand words to J.R. Blackwell, Creative Director, Galileo Games at jrblackwell@galileogames.com. One submission per author.

Proceeds from sales of The Lost will go to Food Bank for New York City, http://www.foodbanknyc.org/

Due Date: Submissions to The Lost are due by September 1st, 2012.

Length: Two to Eight Thousand Words

Kingdom of Nothing: Authors interested in Kingdom of Nothing can purchase the PDF for 7.50: http://galileogames.com/kingdom-of-nothing/

Setting: The Lost is an anthology about the forgotten people of the world. Based on the setting of Kingdom of Nothing, these stories are about people who have lost everything and their struggle to crawl back out of the cracks through which they’ve slipped. Something happened to them that was so horribly traumatic it brought their lives crashing down and forced them onto the street and into homelessness. A mysterious force called the Nothing has eaten their memories and manifested their fears as twisted monsters that threaten to destroy them.

As a result of the world collective ignoring those who are truly desperate, a force called the Nothing came into being.  The Nothing seeks out those who have lost everything they loved and drags them deeper into obscurity. Victims of the Nothing are known as the Lost. The Nothing manifests the fears and hopes of The Lost into creatures only they can see. The fears are called Cobwebs and the hopes are called Echos. The ever-lingering question of whether or not this is a delusion is always present for the Lost. Some embrace the fantasy while others choose to fight their way out into the real world.

Payment: Payment will be made to authors whose stories are accepted for publication. Payment will be $100 to be paid on acceptance of final draft.

Style Guide: Please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style for editorial guidelines. Only use one space after every period. Please include the title of your story, and your full name as how you would like it to appear in the book at the top of the page.

Gender guidelines: Galileo believes in gender equality, and stories should avoid sexist tropes. Women should not always be placed in reactive or passive roles, and female characters should be treated with the same interest and respect given male characters.

Redwing’s Gambit, A Bulldogs! Novella

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

We are proud to announce that very soon we will be releasing Redwing’s Gambit, a novella set in the Bulldogs! universe. The crew of the delivery ship Haldis is en route to drop off a high-ranking politician on a remote world, but something isn’t right. They must overcome sabotage, kidnapping, and mistrust to get to the bottom of what is going on. Redwing’s Gambit is written by Monica Valentinelli.

Cover Illustration by Kurt Komoda.

You can read about other new and upcoming releases on our New Releases page.

Dreamation 2012

Monday, February 27th, 2012

Dreamation 2012

Dreamation 2012 came and went, bringing with it friends and new games. Galileo Games was there with games of Shelter in Place, Bulldogs! Mortal Coil and Brennan Taylor’s new game The Art of Power, which will be coming out later this year. We were able to talk with exciting artists, writers and game designers about new and upcoming projects, and we’re looking forward to making some announcements and taking some submissions in the next few months. Thank you to all the organizers of this fantastic event and to everyone who came out and played a game with us!

IPR Booth

More photos from Dreamation 2012 can be found on the Galileo Games facebook fan page.

Galileo Games at Dreamation 2012

Monday, February 20th, 2012

This weekend Galileo Games will be going to Dreamation in New Jersey. Brennan Taylor and J.R. Blackwell will both be running games at the con including Bulldogs, Shelter in Place and Mortal Coil as well as a brand-new, yet to be released game called The Art of Power.  Below is the Galileo Games schedule for Dreamation. We look forward to seeing you there!

Galileo Games Dreamation Schedule

THURSDAY
8PM: R138 – Bulldogs!; Getting There

FRIDAY

9AM: R166 – The Art of Power; Intrigue at the Queen’s Court

2PM: R174 – Bulldogs!: Getting There

3PM L010 – Shelter In Place

SATURDAY

9AM: R235 – Mortal Coil: Grab Bag of Holding

9AM: R229 – Bulldogs!; Getting There

2PM: R265 – The Art of Power; Intrigue at the Queen’s Court

8PM: R279 – Bulldogs!: No More Gas

Midnight: L032 – Shelter in Place

Buy The Games Mentioned in This Post

Bulldogs

Mortal Coil

Shelter in Place

What They’re Doing Now: Brian Engard

Friday, February 10th, 2012

“What They’re Doing Now” is a interview series for this blog where we catch up with contributors to Galileo Games and find out what they’re currently working on. Galileo is intensely proud of our talented contributors, and we’re happy to highlight all the cool projects they’re involved in. The first interview in this series is with Brian Engard, who co-wrote the game Bulldogs!

Brian Engard is a freelance writer and game designer. He’s written for Galileo Games, Rite Publishing, Evil Hat Productions, and others, and he spends a lot of time ranting about player agency on Twitter. He also hosts a monthly meetup of game designers called the Meetup of Doom at his house near Philadelphia. He lives there with his wife Nicole and his two dogs, Coda and Beau.

Interview with Brian Engard

What was the most challenging part of writing for Bulldogs?

Probably writing the space combat section of the book. I wanted to make sure that space combat was something that everyone participated in no matter their role on the ship. It’s no fun if you have a protracted dogfight where the pilot and the gunners are doing all sorts of awesome stuff and everyone else is just sitting there waiting for a chance to do something. Granted, a lot of that is still down to the GM, but I think the chapter provides enough rules and advice that it’s pretty easy to get everyone involved somehow.

How can game designers help a GM to structure a game so that characters can all contribute to a challenge where only one character, such as a gunner, in your example, has the skills to appropriately respond?

One of the tricks, and this is something that FATE does well, is giving the players leeway to help each other in creative ways. In FATE, you can use skills in interesting ways to perform maneuvers and place aspects on things that others can tag for free. The key to the whole space combat chapter was shining a light on that and making sure to tell the GM, “Look, this is where the magic is. This is how you get everybody to do something.” The other trick, and this is a bit more universal, is to make sure the GM knows that he’s supposed to be looking at every player at the table in turn and saying, “Right, so what are you doing?” When you ask the direct question, it’s hard for the player not to answer.

What projects are you currently working on?

Several things! The one that’s currently occupying the most of my time is The Demolished Ones, a FATE-based game/adventure for Rite Publishing. It’s a dark Victorian noir story with some steampunk and Lovecraftian elements that tells a story about memory, truth, and how they give you power but expose you to danger.
I’m also working on a few projects for Evil Hat. I did some system development for Strange Tales of the Century, I’m working on some material for The Paranet Papers, and I just finished writing a hack for the upcoming Don’t Rest Your Head supplement, Don’t Hack This Game.
In addition to all the freelance stuff above, I’m working on my own game. It’s called Becoming, and it’s a game about what it takes to be a hero, what you have to sacrifice to achieve your goals, and whether or not you’re still a hero when you’re done. That one’s still in the early playtest phase, but coming along nicely.

What are your plans for future games or other creative projects?

I’d imagine I’ll continue to do freelance work for Rite and Evil Hat. If Becoming does well I can see supporting that with a supplement or two. I also just came up with an idea for a kung fu game with a deck-building mechanic, but that’s still in an embryonic state.

Bulldogs! can be purchased at Indie Press Revolution and Drive Thru RPG

Fred: An Interview With Filamena Young

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Filamena Young wrote the opening fiction for Shelter in Place, so when it came time to commission more fiction, working with Filamena again was a natural fit. Filamena Young is a fiction writer who runs  an independent publishing company with her partner called Machine Age Productions. Currently, Filamena is working on a innovative new game called “Flatpack” about rebuilding the world, one building at a time. You can get in early on Flatpack at the Kickstarter. Filamena’s story, Fred, focuses on Shelter in Place‘s mascot and the story of how he became a zombie.  Though Fred is a comical character in Shelter in Place, in Gimme Shelter, his story takes on an entirely different tone.

-J.R.

Fred is pretty happy

An Excerpt From Fred:

“We’ve had that old dog, what, fifteen years now, do you figure?” He went on, pausing for the sake of answers, knowing he wouldn’t hear any, but he was just used to the rhythm of conversation with his wife. “We never did bring her to a shelter, did we? Even when things got bad. Even when they told us you had the cancer and they gave you the Chemo?”

Still, Lilly didn’t answer. She crouched back, away from the dog, but that was only because she’d finished eating it.

Interview

This story has to do with Fred, the signature zombie character from Shelter in Place who guides readers through the game. Since you wrote the opening fiction for Shelter in Place, which features Fred, what made you decide to return to Fred’s character for Gimme Shelter?

Honestly, I couldn’t get enough of Fred when I finished writing the intro. I wanted more of him. (The cartoon character is so cute, and the idea of using him to guide the players through the game was just so much fun.) Sometimes, you finish play a video game, and you know you haven’t gotten enough of the story yet, so you go back and play it a different way. That’s how I felt about Fred. I hadn’t explored enough of his story.

 In this story, we learn more about Fred’s background, and how he became a zombie. There is an element of bitterness to this story, but with a distinctive dash of humor – what inspired you to take this  tone?

When I wrote Fred for the intro, it was humor all the way. Thinking this story through in the shower, (because it’s either the shower or doing dishes, right?) I thought this was going to be more humor. That is, until I sat down at the keys and started writing. I remembered the episode of X Files, the beautiful line from Mulder about zombies and what happens after all the man-eating. The image of the dead still dancing, I don’t know, it jumped up and got in my way before I could write an all funny piece.

What are the projects that you are currently working on, and where can people find you online?

Well, working with my partner, we’re always pushing out games after games. Currently, (and for not too much longer,) I’m kickstarting my game Flatpack: Fix the Future! It’s an optimistic apocalyptic YA roleplaying game. (No, really, it works! Read up, trust me on this.) We’ll be selling it regular style even after the Kickstarter, all that fun stuff you can find at Machineageproductions.com. Both my partner and I loved hooking up with J.R. here at  Galileo, and who knows when stars may align and we end up working together again!  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/machineage/flatpack-fix-the-future-optimistic-apocalyptic-rpg

Gimme Shelter can be purchased in Print, PDF, e-book and Kindle. For more information about Gimme Shelter and the other authors that contributed to the project, visit the Gimme Shelter Page.