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Games

Boom! Crash! Anthros!

Very soon (mid-February, in fact) a new Kickstarter campaign will be starting up, looking to finance a brand-new furry-themed card game called Fur vs. Scale. They explain it best on their web site: “Fur vs Scale is a fast-paced tabletop card game for 2-4 players, pitting heroes of rival kingdoms against each other in strategic combat. The game captures the ebb and flow of your favorite arcade fighter, challenging players to construct winning combinations of attacks, blocks, counters, and super moves over four rounds to be crowned victor. Featuring colorful anthropomorphic animal characters with unique special abilities, Fur vs Scale offers a variety of depth that can be enjoyed by kids and adults of all ages. Fur vs Scale takes place in the world of Junea, a land at war. The fragile peace that existed for decades between the Kindgom of Leon and the Kingdom of Wyrm is shattered by the disappearance of a sacred idol, and the quest to solve the mystery sets heroes from both lands on a dangerous collision course. Relive their tales of glorious combat and guide your chosen hero to victory!” The web site includes a link to a YouTube video telling you more about the game.

image c. 2016 Warspider Entertainment

image c. 2016 WarSpider Entertainment

Love and Tolerate the Snot Out of Each Other

Once upon a time there was an on-line game in development called Fighting is Magic, attempting to create a “Ready! FIGHT!” style inter-player game based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Unfortunately, the Powers That Be at Hasbro decided that the game was a little bit too close to the TV show for comfort, and the project was shut down. Fast forward a couple of years: Now none other than Lauren Faust, the original show runner for Friendship is Magic, is on board to help with the development of a whole new game — in a whole new world. This is from the Indiegogo campaign: “Help a cast of cute animals beat each other up by making Them’s Fightin’ Herds become a reality! Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a 2D PC (Windows, with Linux/Mac as stretch goals) fighting game with adorable animals in an original universe designed by Lauren Faust (producer and developer for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; creator, director and developer for Super Best Friends Forever). It is the spiritual successor to Fighting is Magic, with improved gameplay mechanics and graphics, an entirely new (and awesome!) dynamic music system, a graphic lobby, and a whole bunch of new features.” The Indiegogo page features several preview videos as well as numerous preliminary sketches by Ms. Faust herself.

image c. 2015 by Lauren Faust

image c. 2015 by Lauren Faust

The Red Bird Has Issues

Once again Cartoon Brew provides: This time they have the first teaser trailer for the upcoming Angry Birds Movie, set to hit theaters in May 2016. Based of course on Rovio’s mega-hit downloadable game, the film boasts an impressive voice cast: Among them Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, and Peter Dinklage. “Industry veterans Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, both first-time directors, are helming the project, and Jon Vitti (The Simpsons, The Office, The Larry Sanders Show) wrote the screenplay.” With animation by Sony Imageworks, of course.

image c. 2015 Sony Imageworks

image c. 2015 Sony Imageworks

The Nordguard Expanding

And more from Tempe O’Kun: The author and designer has been hard at work on a new expansion set for the card game based on Nordguard — the award-winning graphic novel created by the artist collective known as Blotch. “Developed directly with Blotch, Nordguard: Tribes of the White Land is an all-new fully-canon expansion for Nordguard: The Card Game. The entire original ThinkTank Games development team came back to work on this set. Includes exclusive new Blotch and Chromamancer art, as well as art from the upcoming Nordguard: Under Dark Skies. This 36-card set will be for sale at Sofawolf Press’s table at Anthrocon and later on their site for $12. With Nordguard: Tribes, we throw players into a new side of the Nordguard setting. Caught between savage strays and strange settlers, the wolf, lynx, and caribou tribes have a thousand-year head start on both. Friend or foe, they’re the unequaled masters of that lethal environment. We brought in an archaeologist specializing in the real-life equivalents of these cultures—advising our artists on everything from the carvings on their Items to the structures on the Locations. If you’re looking to spice up your Nordguard game, don’t miss this expansion.”

image c. 2015 ThinkTank Games

image c. 2015 ThinkTank Games

Ratchet That Much Closer to the Big Screen

Today at Cartoon Brew there was an announcement about new developments for the much-anticipated upcoming Ratchet & Clank feature film. (Based on the popular Playstation video game series.  Do we even need to say that?) Now the film has a distributor (Focus Features, also the home of Laika films) and a planned release date: April 29, 2016. Which is close to the time that Insomniac Games plan to release a new Ratchet & Clank adventure for the PS4. “The movie will be directed by Kevin Munroe (TMNT) and co-directed by Jericca Cleland. The film’s voice cast, also announced this week, includes Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Rosario Dawson, and Sylvester Stallone, with Ratchet, Clank, Nefarious, and Captain Qwark voiced by the same actors as in the games. The script was developed with former Insomniac Games and Ratchet & Clank senior writer T.J. Fixman, with original Ratchet & Clank character designer Dave Guertin and weapon/vehicle designer Greg Baldwin also working on designs.” In other words, they’re putting a lot of effort into this thing!

image c. 2015 Insomniac Games

image c. 2015 Insomniac Games

Fast Cash

There’s been a lot in the news lately about the new video game Yooka-Laylee (get it?). It’s the flagship product of a new company called Playtonic Games, which features a lot of the creative staff from Rare. And this new game is considered to be a spiritual successor to the wildly-popular Banjo & Kazooie series. But that’s not what’s got people talking. This is: Playtonic put up a Kickstarter campaign to finance the game… and they reached their initial multi-thousand British pound goal in less than 40 minutes. That’s got to be some kinda record, we think. “Yooka-Laylee (yes, like the tiny guitar) is a 3D platformer starring Yooka, a bipedal lizard-like dude, and Laylee, a purple “wisecracking lady-bat.” They have unique abilities, such as Yooka’s tongue-grapple and Laylee’s tactical sonar blast, and together these best buds explore five worlds filled with weird characters and feisty bosses. Also, one of the abilities is a “giant fart bubble.” Playtonic knows the way to its players’ hearts.” And their pocketbooks, it would seem. Head on over to Engadget to find out more.

image c. 2015 Playtonic Games

image c. 2015 Playtonic Games

Fight The Pigs!

No matter what it is, you can always take it to a new, higher, weirder level folks. Super Angry Birds is a new full-color on-line comic series from IDW and Rovio Studios, giving us a whole new take on (what else?) the Angry Birds universe. “It’s everyone’s favorite furious fowl as you’ve never seen them before! New Yolk City is your typical bustling metropolis and like every big city it has a dark side. Through lies, deceit and corruption, King Pig and his henchmen have taken over the town and have made life miserable for its citizens. This makes one group of birds angry…Super Angry! This new group of would-be heroes, with powers beyond mortal birds, fight a covert war against King Pig and his minions. They are the Super Angry Birds!” Told you. Two issues are out so far, so check it out over at Comixology.

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing

image c. 2015 IDW Publishing

Those Endearing Acrylic Charms

Call her Riri. Or Riri Mon, perhaps. Either way, she’s an artist who specializes in the chibi side of things… and she’s spun that talent off into Little Heroes, a series of toony acrylic charms for the gamer fan. After a successful Kickstarter campaign they’re now available as key chains, buttons, and other wearables. Not to mention her collection of art prints (many featuring some well-known anime and anime-style characters) and 3D media. Look her up at ririmon.com.

image c. 2015 by Riri Mon

image c. 2015 by Riri Mon

Freddy’s Back! (The OTHER One!)

After what can only be called a very successful year in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon has announced that Part 3 is in development and will be released very soon for computers and a variety of mobile devices. According to an article at Cinema Blend, this new chapter takes place 30 years after the horrific events of Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 and 2 have resulted in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza being shut down and demolished. But now, someone has come up with the bright idea of building a brand new theme park attraction based on Freddy Fazbear’s! Even better, they decide to use some of the old parts from the original animatronic characters for this new dark ride. As you can imagine, things don’t go as planned… No word yet on a precise release date, but the article does feature a very creepy teaser trailer for the new game.

image c. 2015 Scott Cawthon

image c. 2015 Scott Cawthon