In many ways the early 1980s were the heyday of classic microgames, also called minigames, with the popularity of such games as Car Wars and Revolt on Antares, but those were far from the only games available. For instance, TSR Inc. made its fair share of microgames, including Viking Gods. Published in 1982, Viking Gods allowed players to take part in the battle to end all battles, Ragnarok. A game for two players, one player took the side of the…
To those of us old enough to remember, there is little doubt the king of home video game consoles in the early 1980s was the Atari 2600. However, Atari had stiff competition from Mattel Electronics in the form of the Intellivision. First released to the public in 1979, the Intellivison console was perhaps ahead of its time. The Intellivision didn’t even have a proper joystick, something almost unheard of at the time, but came with controllers that used a directional…
As we segue (stagger, stumble, reel, crawl, stop-drop-and roll) from winter into spring, we are faced as always with the never-ending question: “What in the world am I going to read next?” Everyone will solve this dilemma in their own way. Dart and ouija boards, animal entrails, tarot cards, various dice systems, and the blind recommendations of pimply, pasty complexioned clerks in chain bookstores have all been resorted to by readers desperate for guidance. For many people (Black Gate followers no…
The Best Four Days of Gaming have passed. I began my 2016 GenCon coverage with an earlier discussion of a handful of new and upcoming games. There will be more of those to come, as there was no shortage of new games worthy of attention, but a lot of great games at GenCon this year weren’t entirely new, they were either expansions to existing games, or sequels or variants. Not all of these games are quite available to the public yet….
Carlos Hernandez, CSE Cooney, Alyx Dellamonica, and Kelly Robson at the 2016 Nebula Awards banquet I spent last weekend at the 2016 SFWA Nebula Conference in downtown Chicago. The Conference is the big annual gala for the Science Fiction Writers of America, and it culminated in the Nebula Awards ceremony Saturday night. It was a very special weekend for a lot of reasons, not least of which was the nomination for one of our own — C.S.E. Cooney, Black Gate‘s Website…
I’m something of a collector (this may not come as a surprise). I collect vintage paperbacks, pulps, science fiction digests, comics, and lots of other paper ephemera. But chiefly what I collect is games. Goodness, I have a lot of games. I hoard them in the basement. I drive to games auctions (like the marvelous Games Plus auction in Mount Prospect, IL), I track down obscure Amiga games on eBay, and I compulsively hunt every solitaire role playing game ever made. I’m…
I got to know Monte Cook back when Black Gate was still publishing fiction. He’s a talented writer, and he sent me a short story I would have loved to have published. Alas, the magazine was already dying at that point, and we weren’t able to do business. But I’ve kept an eye on his publishing ventures and, like everyone else, was astounded when his Numenera Kickstarter raised an almost unprecedented $517,255 in September 2012. He used the money to launch…
Being at the Games Plus Fall Auction can be an exhilarating experience. Take my discovery of Outbreak: Deep Space, just as an example. There I am, sitting in the second row of the auction on October 4th, ninety minutes into the auction, wondering if I’ve blown my budget already. I’ve just made the decision to add up my purchases when the auctioneer holds up a brand new copy of Outbreak: Deep Space and starts the bidding at $5. What the heck…
I have a real weakness for board games, and especially large-scale space strategy games. It’s one thing to punch that Pop-O-Matic bubble and move your little green marker around a Trouble board; it’s something else entirely to stealthily assemble an unstoppable fleet and launch them en masse towards the unsuspecting alien armada in orbit around Sirius. Ah, I get a thrill just thinking about it. Sometimes a great space game will sneak up on me. It’s not my fault — I can barely…
You Black Gate peeps sure are a reliable bunch. You love vintage fantasy paperbacks, 80s horror movies, and gaming news, and with a noble passion. But you know what you really crave? Tales of People Behaving Badly, that’s what. Figures. And thus we find that the #1 article on the Black Gate blog last month was our report on John Campbell’s ugly KickStarter implosion, a sad tale of comics, hubris, and book-burning. (It was my favorite, too. I’m not throwing…