Michael Erb talks Zombie Fluxx with Andy Looney at Origins
By Flames | July 13, 2008
The dead are walking and hungry for brains. Shutter the windows, barricade the door and load your shotgun.
Oh, and this round draw three and play two.
“Zombie Fluxx,” a card game from the appropriately-named Looney Labs, is based off the popular and zany “Fluxx,” an ever changing card game that begins simple and ends up insane.
“Zombie Fluxx” takes the base game one shuffling step forward, adding in iconic images from zombie and horror movies and a new kind of card to liven (pardon the pun) up the mix.
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2008 Origins Highlights
By Flames | July 2, 2008
Earlier this week we posted an initial Origins Report which featured a few teasers for interviews that guest blogger Michael Erb had lined up while he was at the convention. Also included in that first post is the list of Origins Award Winners for this year. Today Michael shows off a few of the photos he snapped while wandering the hall and highlights some of the publishers he made contact with throughout the weekend…
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Impressions of Wizard World Chicago 2008
By Monica Valentinelli | June 29, 2008
Flames Rising was fortunate to attend Wizard World Chicago this year, at the gorgeous Rosemont Convention Center in Des Plaines, Illinois.
This was our first year at the convention, and we’re happy to report that we are making plans to go back next year.
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Origins Interviews & Origins Awards Winners
By Flames | June 29, 2008
Some of the Flames Rising crew was at Wizard World Chicago this weekend checking out new Horror Comics and Dark Fantasy Artists. Michael Erb helped us diversify our efforts and dropped by Origins Game Fair to get the scoop on upcoming games, cool events and the 34th Annual Origins Awards.
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White Wolf’s Alternative Publishing Efforts
By Matt-M-McElroy | June 18, 2008
It is no secret that I’ve been a fan of many of the products White Wolf has released over the years. This site started out as a resource for a Live Action Vampire: the Masquerade game I was running in the Milwaukee area. Eventually it expanded to include other Horror games like Cthulhu Live, Obsidian: the Age of Judgement and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
Over time it evolved into the current set-up featuring just about anything Horror & Dark Fantasy you can imagine. Still, we continue to play, review and generally enjoy many of the current and classic White Wolf games and fiction. We’ve even added new Previews of upcoming products recently.
Back when I interviewed Eddy Webb there technically was not an “Alternative Product Developer” at the company. He had been working on developing and writing Mind’s Eye Theatre: The Awakening which became the first product to be released in both eBook and Print on Demand formats.
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Game Fiction: Why it Works (and Why it Doesn’t)
By Monica Valentinelli | April 14, 2008
If you go to your bookshelf and pick up your favorite gaming book, whether it’s from Apophis Consortium or Evil Hat Productions, reread the fiction or flavor text that’s used as chapter breaks or to enhance the setting. Now, check out your other books and see how many World of Warcraft-inspired novels or Forgotten Realms stories you have.
Do you remember what you liked about them? Disliked?
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Lynne Thomas, Professional Geek
By Flames | April 12, 2008
For the past, five years Flames Rising has been fortunate to publish content from some interesting folk. From musicians to up-and-coming authors or horror fans, our reviewers have come from all walks of life. Flames Rising review Lynne Thomas is no exception. Here Lynne opens up and describes her fascinating job as the Head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, where she focuses on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror literature.
Come take a look at this awesome day job, and learn how you can help preserve the science fiction, fantasy and horror books you love to read.
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Freelancers Beware: What Wizard’s new OGL May Mean to You
By Monica Valentinelli | January 25, 2008
When Wizards first announced it’s new Open Game License (OGL) for publishers, a flurry of forum activity like this thread on RPGnet covered concerns from fans, contributors and publishers. Wizard of the Coast’s new OGL license for 4th Edition Rules hardly resembles the previous, free-flowing version, and while you may (or may not) agree with the way that Wizards has handled this aspect of their business, I still feel that it’s important to point out that this change could affect freelancers workflow and payment schedules.
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Taking a Bite Out of Horror: A Guide to Reviewing Horror Films Like the Pros
By Monica Valentinelli | January 7, 2007
Horror-genre lovers (like you and me) can’t resist sharing our love of the macabre. If we tell our friends about a dog of a film, they probably won’t go to see it. How then do we write a film review that finds the happy medium between gushing over the latest hit and bashing that worthless dud?
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Got a Taste for Evil? Read More about the Number 666
By Monica Valentinelli | June 6, 2006
While the day may seem just like any other day, several people are hoping you’ll remember June 6, 2006, the so-called “number of the beast,” by doing something a little hellish, and maybe picking up an item or two along the way.
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On Reviewing Fiction
By Monica Valentinelli | February 3, 2005
These days almost everyone with a home computer at some point or another wants to be a writer. As a consequence the fiction market has been flooded with new authors: some good, some bad. But what makes a piece of fiction “bad”? How does the average reader know what’s worthwhile to read and what isn’t?
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How to Write Reviews of Role Playing Game Books
By Flames | December 7, 2004
The purpose of a review is to provide readers with enough information to decide whether they would like to spend their time or money on reading the book, watching the film or, in our case, playing the game. Whether or not the reviewer enjoys or is enthused by the game is of less importance. The reader must come first.
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Horror Plot Devices
By Flames | November 29, 2004
Plenty of articles deal with setting the mood for a horror RPG. As a result, I’m not going to tackle that topic. Instead, I’d like to talk about plot devices that, when in operation at a level of generality above specific mood elements, set the stage for creating a truly horrific RPG.
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Deeper: Getting More from your Character
By Flames | August 7, 2002
Have you ever noticed how some types of characters seem to lend themselves naturally to stereotype? In Vampire you can easily find multiple-personality Malkavians, limp-wristed über-goth Toreador, street-punk Brujah, and so on; in Changeling (which I play the most often) there’s big, dumb trolls and horny satyrs, and so on. Every clan or kith or tradition or group has a stereotype.
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