An Ongoing Story of Solitaire, Sacred Cows, and Condensation
In 1982, Illuminati arrived at game stores across the nation, and the world (and I) has never quite been the same since. The card game of shadowy organizations focused on global domination blended history, fandom, conspiracy theories, and ripped-from-the-headline stories to create a game experience that still captures players’ imaginations 40 years later. The original game has had spinoffs, a collectable card version, and still pops up on websites claiming the game is more than just an amusement. (Just take our word for that.)
The rules recommend that you play the game with four or more players. But, in this time of plague and isolation, few of us have the player count required to make this game shine. It’s a very visual game, with review of player’s power structures, the number of special cards a player has stashed, and keeping an eye on how fluffy a player’s money pile is make it hard to play over video. …
Celebrating the anniversary of Steve Jackson’s seminal GURPS title Man to Man, we reprinted an article from Space Gamer #76, with retro art and ads! Look for the first tease of Roleplayer, the now-classic zine dedicated to GURPS and roleplaying games.
Man to Man is the combat game from my Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS for short), It’s the product of years of work, and the first in what I hope will be a very long line of GURPS releases.
I started work on the (then unnamed) GURPS in mid-1981, Steve Jackson Games had been going for almost a year, I knew that — someday — we would need our own roleplaying system, Which was fine, since I wanted to design it! …
by Andrew Hackard
Because you’re an awesome person with awesome friends, you’ve decided to throw a party. Hooray!
And because you’re an awesome person with exquisite taste, you’ve decided to make it a Munchkin party. Hooray again!
Wanting to throw a Munchkin party and knowing how to throw a Munchkin party are two different things, however. Here are some ideas for ways to make your party a success. Some are . . . better . . . than others.
- Variety! If you have several Munchkin games, let people choose which table to join. Encourage them to try a version they’ve never played before!
- Quick games! Put a time limit of one hour on each game session. You don’t want people standing around waiting for Those Friends at That Table to finish their three-hour marathon game. …
By Steve Jackson and Andrew Hackard
We’ve been writing Munchkin a long time. Over those 17 years, we’ve had a lot of downright silly ideas for card names. Many of them found homes in whatever sets we were working on at the time, but many were held until we could find the right place to put them.
Andrew: Back in 2015, we were talking about writing a new fantasy Munchkin set and reviewing our file of ideas. We kept coming up with silly cards like the Boomerangutan and the Drizzly Bear, combining animals and objects to make monsters and weapons. …
By Tyeera Garza
Getting gifts for the Munchkin fan in your life at the last minute? Fear not, we’re here to help! Kick down the door and take your holidays up to level 10 with our newest Munchkin games and accessories!
New Releases
By Tyeera Garza
This year, we’ve released quite a few games that are quickly becoming favorites! We wanted to share them with you, in addition to some other stocking stuffers, so that you can get a jump on your holiday shopping and get your loved ones something extra special!
Card and Dice Games
By Steve Jackson
Miniatures painted by Ben Williams
As the second edition of Ogre Miniatures comes together, I’ve tried my hand at creating flat miniatures terrain, with moderate success.
Flat terrain? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?
Flat terrain is terrain that represents forests, rivers, etc., by flat pieces, and hills by stacks of flat pieces. The point of 2-D terrain is to look good while giving the miniatures a stable base on which to rest. It’s hard to play when your figures slide downhill on their own, or get trapped in the forest for real. …
Howard Tayler, Artist of Munchkin Starfinder
I was at GenCon Indy when Steve and Andrew crashed my booth with an invitation to draw a couple hundred Munchkin cards. Details of their proposal aside, I agreed, and then realized that the reference material I needed, the Starfinder Core Rulebook from Paizo, was completely sold out there at the show.
So I champed at the proverbial bit until I got home from the convention, at which point I rushed over to my FLGS to buy a copy of the book.
My job was to create Munchkin-styled caricatures of Starfinder art, and as I started scribbling away at concept pieces I quickly realized that the caricatures would be better (and easier to come up with!) if I started reading the book. There came a point when, as I sat on the couch with the Starfinder book propped up next to me, a drawing board on my lap, and one of the blockbuster science fiction franchise films playing in front of me that I wished I could go back in time and tell ten-year-old me that this was actually going to be my job. …
Andrew Hackard, Munchkin Line Editor
Munchkin Pathfinder and its expansions have been a big success for Munchkin. The game world that Paizo created is detailed and vast; the hardest part in writing the Munchkin sets was choosing among the many great options to make a game that’s true to Pathfinder while still being very much Munchkin. Based on sales and the comments I’ve seen online and heard from fans in person, we succeeded.
Early in 2016, Paizo announced that they were working on Starfinder, a science fantasy roleplaying game using the Pathfinder engine. As we followed their announcements and the development of the game, we became more and more convinced that we wanted to add Starfinder to the Munchkin family. …
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