Aberrant Games Looking to the Future 2007

Outbreak

War has come! With the release of Rezolution: Outbreak the bubbling undercurrents of violence and corporate skirmishes have finally come to a head. What started in A Dark Tomorrow and was given a prologue in Shadow War has finally started to erupt! For many, this may have seemed a weird way to do what is basically a ‘wargame.’ We were, however, very interested in telling a story - creating a detailed background with believable characters and distinct cultures, and it was this that has attracted some of the great contributions from others to the universe. We really wanted to do something different, something grand, and something that would definitely reward those of you who enjoy seeing the story build to the imminent confrontation, but equally rewarding for new players to jump straight into and with a minimum financial outlay, be playing almost straight out of the box. We are really happy with Outbreak. It’s an amazing book, and Tony and Corey did a fantastic job taking Simon’s deranged ramblings and putting together what is essentially a tabletop adventure rivaling anything Hollywood has thrown our way in recent years. We’re equally proud of the Vatacina and the additional rules that form the Campaign sections of the book; these were two parts of Rezolution that we had wanted to get out there since the beginning. Here again this wouldn’t have been possible without the feedback (and arguments) from play-testers, and comments from players around the country and world, and the hard work yet again of Tony and Jane putting it all together. As we said with the release of A Dark Tomorrow, we want Rezolution to be your game - after all, you invest your hard-earned money into it! So we’re always there to listen - we didn’t say we’ll agree, but we’ll always listen - because in the end, we wouldn’t be here at all now if it wasn’t for you.

Fantasy Worlds Await in 2008

But what of the future…apart from looking forward to spending time with our family and friends (and watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special!) over the Holidays! We are going to kick the New Year off with a bang, with the Vatacina Guard and Vatacina Guard Captain, as well as the Volkoda team pack, and hopefully keep it rolling throughout the year. With the new fulfillment service in place for distributors, there should be no reason why stores cannot get Aberrant products wherever in the world we personally happen to be that week! We currently have 10 waves planned for shipping next year, of which 70% of the Rezolution items are already sculpted and master molded. And for those of you waiting patiently (or not, as maybe the case!) you will absolutely, definitely see the Dungeoneer figures by Summer 2008. So that wraps up some of the stuff you’ve been waiting for, and hopefully answers some of your questions and concerns, now onto the new stuff… First up, the story of SAGA.

SAGA is something we’ve been working on for a while, although the mechanics have only come together in the last couple of years. Man, are we pleased with how this baby plays! From skirmishes to battles, it’s fluid elegant and fast. It’s everything you want a fantasy game to be, and features several innovations in its design that we feel makes it escape the pitfalls of other wargames. And don’t expect the same tired old parade of fantasy stables that you see year in year out, as we’ve created some completely new races from the ground up to fill this dark and dangerous world. And as you’d expect from Aberrant, they come complete with their own cultures and motivations for a living, breathing gaming experience. The miniatures are exquisite, and based on amazing illustrations from Pat Lobyoko and regular Aberrant contributor, Ross Campbell, among others. Those of you who attended GenCon 2007 will already recognize our Northlander hero from the promo cards given out there. The plan is for a GenCon release for the core SAGA book, though the miniatures will be turning up much earlier in the year. Although that is the plan, we want the SAGA book to be magnificent, and it will be, but if it takes a bit longer to achieve, so be it.

The Horror... The Horror...

And so onto the next 2008 debut - Survive or Die! As you might expect from the title, this is a survival horror game, or just a survivalist game as the ‘fantasy’ elements can easily be removed, with groups of survivors trying to survive after a catastrophic event such as a biological or nuclear attack. It was originally designed so we could play our own versions of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and was intended to be Aberrant’s next game, and a board game at that! But after seeing Last Night on Earth (an excellent zombie board game that every fan of the genre should own) at GAMA 2007, as well as hearing about other horror-based projects, we pulled back on our plans. It’s always been our intention to release great original material with Aberrant Games, and we have no intention of even seeming to imitate other manufacturers, so we switched our priorities to SAGA which we were already working on. But Survive or Die, in true horror film fashion would not stay down, and going back to its tabletop roots, we kept playing and our play-testers kept requesting to play it. So finally we have decided to resurrect it and release it as a downloadable PDF book - who knows, if it proves popular enough, maybe it will see light in print, but we don’t have any plans for that in the immediate future.

Survive or Die! The Survival Horror Tabletop Experience

Get Your Game On

The last big news of the year is that at GenCon 2008, we will be having our first Rezolution Grand Tournament, so start preparing your forces now! We will also be launching our in-store tournament kits, and thanks has to go out to Bryan, the newest member of our team who has been putting this together for us over the last few months. More details of this will be revealed in the New Year, along with the tournament rules in the next issue of Data Dump. So thanks all for your continued support and we hope to see many of you on the convention trail in 2008. Happy Holidays to you all!