A journey into the things we love: Podcast + blog! Get your geek on or discover your inner geek: games, video games, RPGs, comic books, movies, TV, books, oh so much more!
Skip forward 365 days and some change, and now we have the release version of that game in Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown.
It’s come a long way from the early access version. My first look at Shadowrun Chronicles was definitely fun and it felt like Shadowrun. A few rough spots but overall well worth checking out if you like the genre and / or the dystopian-cyberpunk-meets-urban-fantasy setting.
The game lets you you run the shadows and features plenty of turn-based tactical combat in single player, multiplayer and co-op.
Arctic, chummer.
See for yourself in my First Look lets play video:
Thanks for watching!
Shane
About the Game: Enter the world of Shadowrun Chronicles and experience the online action strategy game you can play with your friends! Create a team of runners in single player or with your friends co-op set in the dystopian world of 2076. A world where magic meets technology, where Elves, Dwarves, Orks and Trolls walk among us. A world controlled by ruthless corporations, where you become a Shadowrunner – a secret operative on the edge of society, a cyberpunk rebel surviving by skill and instinct!
Watch your back.
Shoot straight.
Conserve ammo.
And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
What this is: a scrollable, one page list of D&D cover art for core rulebooks(or “semi-core rulebooks”, semi-core of course being subjective) rulebooks of the various versions of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG game.
I spent some time searching for a page like this that had everything all in one place for D&D cover art and couldn’t find it (although there are great resources out there, nothing seems to have it all on one page). So I hope you find this useful and fun to browse.
I also hope for this to be an ongoing, fluid post as more information comes to light and (hopefully) folks point out things I’ve missed or books I should have covered but didn’t, etc. So feel free!
Many sites were helpful in helping me remember (or learn about!) the various rulebooks and their chronology, but the three I found myself on most often were the Tome of Treasures, Wikipedia and D&D Classics.
Without further ado, the Dungeons & Dragons rulebook cover art throughout the years:
Update 1 (April 25, 2015): Added OD&D Men & Magic 1st – 3rd Printing cover (based on note from Shawn Sanford in comments); Added Video slideshow version via YouTube embed (at bottom of post)
I have to admit: A couple of days ago I had never heard of Mike Singleton. He’s a retired teacher turned game design legend who sadly passed away in 2012. I wish I had known about him earlier. Let me tell you how I found out about him.
While playing the newly released, Kickstarter funded “successor” to Baldur’s Gate, CRPG Pillars of Eternity (which is darn good, by the way), one encounters tombstones and plaques with memorial messages that backers at the $500 level and above could write a message on to be read by all and sundry. Although completely optional and not related to story or gameplay, I’ve been reading all of them.
These memorials range from the pithy to the profound, with some being silly, some being inscrutable, some being quite clever and some being blank. The other day I ran across one that read thus:
Mike Singleton: An often forgotten visionary, giving the gaming world some of its most brilliant games when video gaming was in its infancy.
My interest piqued, I launched a thorough investigation (ok, I googled for a couple of minutes) and discovered more about Mr. Mike Singleton.
The memorial that started it all
It’s obvious from reading about him that his games hold a special place in the hearts of a generation of gamers, mainly British 80’s computer gamers, yet his influence did extends beyond the shores of the United Kingdom.
Initially programming on the Commodore PET, the majority of his most popular titles were developed on and for the ZX Spectrum, a machine that has the same sort of cultural cache and influence in the UK as the Commodore 64 did in the USA. In other words, for a few years it basically WAS computing / gaming for a whole lot of people (people like me and my friends).
The ZX Spectrum: Taste the rainbow
Here are some of Mike Singleton’s more well known games:
Other than War in Middle Earth, these sound like games I should have played them, as if they are artifacts of a parallel Earth that was almost the same, but not quite, as my own. They just ring true.
In their day these were critical and commercial successes, and also credited with breaking new ground.
One article I found even credits Mike and British game designers with the concept of open world gaming:
“Open Worlds are a truly British creation, and all the early manifestations were developed in the UK – David Braben and Ian Bell’s Elite (1984), Andrew Braybrook’s Paradroid (1985) and Novagen’s Mercenary (1985), and of course Mike Singleton’s Midnight and Midwinter series… this is the heritage that leads to DMA Design’s Grand Theft Auto (1997) and the creation of the contemporary Open World concept… Using a ground-breaking technique he called landscaping [emphasis added by Shane], Mike realized he could simulate thousands of locations from small component images that could be composited into first person views on the basis of situational data. The result was magical.” Only a Game blog: http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2012/10/mike-singleton.html
Computer artist Glen Marshall has this to say:
“RIP Mike Singleton – probably the most inspirational creative figure in my whole life – the greatest game designer ever from the golden era – the beauty and mystery of those computer generated landscapes still inspire me in everything I do. Thank you so much.” Glen Marshall Computer Art: https://glennmarshall.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/mike-singleton/
High praise.
After stumbling across Mike Singleton’s memorial tribute in Pillars of Eternity and seeking out his story, I’m left with two main thoughts…
First, I wish I would have played his games in the 80’s because I’m guessing I would have the same fond memories as those who did.
Second, how cool is a hobby that I can be enjoying a good CRPG and suddenly walk off into a tangent that where I learn more about an interesting guy and the hobby itself.
Just another example of gaming rising above what it seems to be on the surface. Cool stuff.
Read more about Mike Singleton (and don’t miss the image gallery below!):
I do my best to keep my entertainment and my politics separate. I play games to relax, to escape real life for a few hours here and there. I do not play games because I feel like I am part of some special, separate and enlightened group.
Here lately, well meaning folks have been yelling a lot and pushing politics into the gaming world as a result of such events as “the gate which shall not be named” and a controversial law in Indiana.
I’ve seen a very creative and innovative RPG game company comprised of what seem to be nice people get raked over the coals and bullied for acknowledging there is a fictionalized view of “Indians” (Native Americans) and it might be fun to play in that fictionalized world.
I’ve seen more and more worldview mind programming enter my game rules (see the gender section of the D&D 5th edition rules, for example).
This isn’t about whether I agree or disagree with these things, or about what “side” I am on… it is the fact that more and more of it is happening. For an activity that should be all about fun, the twain should not meet!
In addition, and just as frustrating to me, among this activity and righteous efforts has been a lot of discussion about what gamers “are” and “are not” and how they believe and act.
Let me clue you in on some reality:
The fact that I like to play games does not opt me in to a moral, ethical or legal code of how I interact with others.
Let me say it again, just in case:
The fact that I like to play games does not opt me in to a moral, ethical or legal code of how I interact with others.
All it opts me into is the fact that I like to play games.
That’s it. Nothing else.
If I want to take it further and choose to form my concept of who I am as being related to a subset / subculture of people who play games, then I and you may by all means do so.
Yet the subculture is starting to tell everyone who plays games who they are and who they should be.
I disagree with this, as you may have gathered by this point.
So remember, just ponder, keep in mind: If you draw a circle of who gamers “are”, and people are left outside of that circle (even if you don’t like their opinions or actions) then you are accidentally doing exactly what you are trying to prevent.
It gets messy. It causes problems.
And messes and problems are the exact opposite of why I play games. Be careful of letting politics and games mix up, because it may be harder to separate later when you want it to.
Politics, even with the best of intentions, often has unintended consequences that can be hard to fix.
I was far down nostalgia lane playing a game of Glider when all of a sudden there was a loud *POP* and the smell of smoke. Panicked, I slammed the power switches off and pulled the plugs. It didn’t take much sniffing to find the source of the acrid odor: the external hard drive…
