The set is a mere 569 pieces, but that still means a pair of instruction manuals are required to assemble it.  It is deceptively complex, and the internal structure is a mess of moving parts which allow the wings and internal cockpit assembly to rotate as the ship moves.  It’s a pretty sweet gimmick.

Along with this the ship also ends up with several fold out missile banks that reside in hidden panels, and a storage bay in which to haul all your carbonite frozen prey.  It also comes with a nice selection of mini figures to recreate your favorite scenes.  Boba Fett is of coures there, as is a Han frozen in carbonite square, behind which a minifigure can be placed when you want to thaw them.  In this case Han Solo himself.  You also get a Bossk figure to help load the ship.

It really captures the look of the ship in the movie I think.  It looks patched and battle damaged and just a little menacing.  It is a great display piece, and solid enough for light play.  It looks even better on my shelf beside the Millennium Falcon.  Highly recommend it if you can find it.  Its a great set that gives a really great depiction of a classic sci-fi icon for a decent price.  Once again I think Lego has hit it out of the park.

At the start of each game you choose your team, of which currently only two are available, though more should be coming soon for download.  Each team is made up of five different classes along with an assortment of items that are doled out at random as the game progresses.     The classes are essentially your standard fantasy fair of warrior, mage, healer, hunter, and then an elite unit that has a mix of the rest.  Each team has one or two crystals to defend on a 4×9 grid.  Each turn consists of five actions, and you can try as many variations as you like before hitting submit.  This is thankful considering both how important those few moves are to the games tactics, and also since with the small screen of the iPhone it is very easy to miss click and send your units to the wrong space.

Now it must be noted that this is an online game only.  There is no option to play against computer opponents, and since it is turn based it is possible to go anywhere from a few minutes to several hours between turns if your opponent doesn’t make a move.  You also have the problem in that there is no ranking system, so when you click random match you never know if you will end up with a first time player or an expert.  However as you can match games by name and essentially build a friends list it’s easy to form a roster of players to match your abilities.

Hero Academy is a great looking game with a very unique style.  The graphics are cartoony with a interesting mix of cute and menace.  The animation is very smooth and all of the attacks and special effects look amazing.  I especially like the look of the area of effect spells, which are unique for each team.

The game is free for download but with plenty of micro transaction items available to customize your team or get new ones.  Most things are a dollar or two to purchase and other then the teams nothing is game changing.  The one new team currently available, the Dark Elves, is well worth the money however as they play dramatically different from the base Human team.

I highly recommend this one to everyone.  It’s a great looking game with surprisingly deep tactics.  Though I wish there was at least a tutorial mode that let you play against some bots the game is a blast.  Its free which is hard to be as well.

So first things first, what is Pulp?

Pulp, contrary to popular belief, is not a genre in and of itself. The term Pulp refers to magazines sold from the late 1890 through the end of the 1950s. These magazines were printed on cheap “pulp” paper, thus the moniker.  They were the follow-up to the Dime Novels and Penny Dreadful magazines of the 1800s. They were cheap, mass produced magazines aimed at the lower middle class market, offering a hundred or so pages of novellas and short stories, all for about a quarter.

They were also the single biggest publishers of short stories in their time and covered every genre. Westerns, Sci-Fi, Crime, Historical Fiction, Teen Romance, Horror, you name it and you could find a pulp magazine or ten dedicated to your genre of choice.  Some even tried pairing up multiple genres, sometimes with bizarre results, such as the entire line of “Spicy” books which paired lurid erotica with pretty much every other genre they could find.  Even then sex sold.

These were the home of guys like Lovecraft, Burroughs, Howard, and McCulley, spawning respectively Cthulhu, John Carter, Conan, and Zorro. And along with those fellows pretty much any author of short stories during those decades probably published at least a few stories between the lurid covers of a pulp magazine.

Of course the pulps eventually faded, with the few publishers that survived transferring over to other things, Marvel and DC for instance both started life as pulp publishers before entering and essentially creating the modern comic book industry.

So done with the history lesson, what does any of this have to do with playing a pulp game?

Well my point is essentially that playing a pulp game has less to do with the genre of the game then it does the tone.  The pulps were a haven for short stories and novellas. These were stories with thirty to a hundred pages that moved fast, pulling you through with thrills, chills, dramatic plot twists, and surprise reveals. They were short self-contained tales that often only hinted at the overreaching world or plotline that may have existed.  You need a system that really captures that.

Call of Cthulhu for instance, with it Chaosium has done an amazing job getting the feel and tone of Lovecraft’s work into a workable table top experience.  Most people simply call it horror, but it is very much a pulp game.  Another good one is Savage Worlds, which though focusing more on the action adventure genres has the fast paced feel of the source material regardless of if you are doing a western or heading to Mars for some sci-fi thrills.
This isn’t to say that you can’t play pulp in whatever your system of choice is, but I think some rule setsw lend themselves better to it. You want a fairly fast paced system, and though crunch isn’t a bad thing, you want a system where it doesn’t slow things down.  D&D for instance is probably not the best system for the pulp experience, it tends to be far to slow paced as a result of the focus on combat tactics. I really like FATE personally as it tends to be a fast paced system that gives the players and the DM plenty of freedom to throw curveballs and cliffhanger events into the mix.  Though rules heavy GURPS and HERO are also decent choices assuming you have a good understanding of the rules.

Regardless of system though it’s the story that is key.

Each adventure should play like a pulp short story, dropping the players into the action or mystery as quickly as possible. One shot style adventures are best to get this vibe.  Now I’m not saying things need to be as tightly scripted as you would a game for a con or the like, but you should be running short stand alone type adventures.  Each session or two should be a single story, an adventure with all the plot twists, cliffhangers, and the climatic ending of a pulp novel.

But what if you want to run a Pulp themed campaign?

Most pulp stories were self contained adventures, but they also tended to have a continuity between them .  The Shadow for instance gained and lost agents as the stories went on.  He developed new skills, lost friends, defeated mortal enemies, and lived to encounter new ones.  Sometimes months passed between adventures, other times it was only a few days.  But his campaign against evil went on for years.

Though I think pulp games should be played as a series of self contained adventures, think a string of one shots that just happen to link together, each dropping hints at the future without necessarily having a direct path to it.  Instead of the constantly moving story that seems to be the norm when playing most campaigns think of things as more a timeline where you might have one adventure happen in early spring, while the next session jumps to say midsummer, the next early winter. On occasion you might even flashback to a smaller adventure that happened during one of those skipped periods of time.

Even if you aren’t going for a Pulp theme I find allot of advantages to gaming this way.  For one you always have a ready end point should the group or the DM get burned out, for another the episodic nature of it makes it much easier to work new players in or explain away a missing player.  How many times have you had to handwave a character because the player didn’t show up when the group was supposedly trapped in a dungeon or the like.

The Pulps make for excellent inspiration regardless of which of the multitude of genres you choose to pull from.  Hopefully this will get some people thinking and may have acted as a slightly informative and entertaining read.

* As a result this little article was originally posted over on the Happy Jacks RPG Podcast forums.  It’s been edited and cleaned up a bit, plus I’ve incorporated some of the ideas that were sparked by the discussions that followed it.  I highly recommend anyone interested in the RPG hobby check out Happy Jacks.

The basic plot centers around an alternate version of prohibition New York called the Empire State.  It’s a dark and twisted reflection of the era that is stuck in a war with an unknown enemy.  The protagonist is a down and out detective named Rad Bardley who has been hired to find a missing woman.  Meanwhile a bootlegger and a pair of fallen superheroes along with a slew of other mysterious characters begin to crisscross his path as a simple missing person case evolves into murder and then a search for possibly world shattering secrets about his world.  Zeppelins, cyborgs, gas mask wearing dimensional travelers, and a mad man give the world tons of character and plenty of extra fun.

The story is a bit of a mind bender at times, and there are quite a few plot holes, but it’s an amazingly fun ride from start to finish.  There is one tiny part early in the novel that will seem very disjointed and out of place I think to most readers.  It’s only a few pages, but they feel like they were written and pasted into their spot after the book had been finished.  They do however tie directly into something at the end of the book making me think that the story might have originally had a slightly different ending.  It’s hard to really explain without giving spoilers, but its really a minor thing and shouldn’t distract the reader to much.

Granted one has to be a fan of the multiple genres that inspired this book to really get the most joy out of it.  It’s certainly not for everyone but I think any fan of pulp or sci-fi should give it a read.  Also as a debut novel it makes me very excited for what the author Adam Christopher will bring out in the future.  Not to mention that the book is also part of something the publishers call “World Builder”.

With “World Builder” the idea is that anyone can create stories set in the universe of the book through an open license, though they cannot use the exact characters of the novel.  Angry Robot, the publishers, plan on collecting the best of what the fans create and publish an anthology series to flesh out the book’s universe.  It’s an interesting concept, and I like the world Christopher has created enough that I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

Another interesting little tidbit is that the Adam Christopher decided to post the musical playlist he listened to while coming up with his ideas and writing the book in the back of it.  There is also a little interview he did where he gives some insights into what led to the book and why he made some of the choice he did.  Nice little extras that aren’t necessary but flesh things out.  It gives things a little of a directors cut type vibe that I like.

Highly recommend this one to everyone, and really hope that “World Builder” actually amounts to something and we see more of the Empire State world whether from Adam Christopher or from the fans.

At its core the game is a classic run and jump style side scrolling romp where the protagonist must continually head left avoiding obstacles and collecting loot and temporary power-ups.  Of course in this case your jumping involves a variety of jetpacks, the first one made of machine guns.  And your power-ups run the gamut from a suped-up Harley to a flying mechanical dragon.  Which you use to avoid electrical zapper walls and random missiles and laser beams.

Beyond the trailer there is no plot to speak of, but really when you have a game as quirky and fun as this plot kind of steps aside anyways.  It’s a fast paced romp where each run is likely to last no more than a minute or two and where they often last no more than a few seconds.  Barry dies in a single hit unless he’s riding a power-up, and assuming you’ve obtained some tokens for the Slot Machine of Death you do have a chance at a 1-up.  Otherwise once you’ve been zapped, fried, or blown up its game over and another chance to see Barry explode through the wall, scoop up his jetpack, and cause another round of chaos through the lab.

The controls are likely the simplest you will ever see, touch the screen to fire the jetpack, let go to drop to the ground.  One finger controls the whole game, so the learning curve is pretty damn simple.  To make up for this simplistic gameplay and keep you from getting bored you constantly have a trio of mini missions to tackle that range from reaching a certain distance, to tagging a number of scientists, or simply collecting coins.  As you go along the missions get tougher and the runs can get pretty intense as you try to accomplish them.  You also get a chance to spend all your hard earned coins in a place called The Stash, which is loaded with new costumes for Barry, new bizarre jetpacks like the fruit launcher and the rainbow.  You can also 1-ups or other one time use boosts to aid you.

This is a truly great game, and one I recommend to anyone with a apple device without reservation.  It is currently $0.99 so it’s not going to break the bank, and I promise you will get your money’s worth.  Just make sure you don’t have anything important to do for awhile, because the game will suck you in.

I actually celebrate Yule at this time of year, which in this modern day is essentially the winter solstice.  Oddly enough I am able to do so using a great many “Christmas” traditions simply because they incorporate the older pagan ways to start with.  I still put up a tree and light it, lacking a fireplace it stands in as my Yule log, illuminating the cold winter nights.  I also give and receive gifts, a tradition started with the original Germanic Yule traditions, as a compromise with my family’s traditions we open some of our gifts on the solstice and then open the rest on Christmas eve.  And of course there is the feast, I always try to get together with friends or family for a meal.  On the other hand I usually eat a solitary meal on Christmas eve, preferring to spend that night in more spiritual contemplation.

For all that it is hard at times trying to celebrate as I do when all around me most people are very much of the Christian and Christmas mindset.  They don’t make a great many Yule decorations, though I find that the more secular style offerings will work in a pinch.  And of course I have on several occasions been yelled at for wishing someone a happy Yule, accused of trying to be politically correct when I am far from it.  But on a cold clear night when I look up at the moon I take a breath and let the stress of such things flow out of me.

Yule is a time of spiritual rebirth, a time to strengthen ties with friends and family, and to center myself.  I think in the end that is what all the holidays that happen at this time of year are at their cores.  To any of you who may be Pagan I wish a merry Yule, for those of other sects and beliefs I hope that whatever holiday you celebrate is a happy one, and that you spend it with people you care about and enjoy it.

This one is more of an Indian Jones style adventure, or if you prefer, one of the old Universal Serials from the 30s.  Lots of international globetrotting, plenty of adventure and danger, and on occasion a shootout with Nazis.  Jungle Temples, Pygmies, and plenty of dart traps abound as you wander the world in search of Fortune and Glory.  Being the pulp fan that I am, I had to pick it up, the cover alone grabbed me.  Zeppelins, Nazis, Femme Fatales, and of course Dashing Heroes grace it in a massive splash scene reminiscent of a movie poster.

This one is likely their most complicated game, and it is certainly their most expensive so far.  If I have one bad thing to say it’s about the over complicated rules.  There are actually three game types included, a basic game that consists of a small quick start guide, and then two more advanced options that share a thirty odd page rule book.  It’s a game that takes two to three hours to play, and will take some study of the rules to really get a hang of.  Personally though I think it’s worth it.  I have only been able to play the basic competitive version however, looking forward to some Nazi fighting cooperative play at some point in the near future though.

In the box, along with the fore mentioned rule books, are a nicely illustrated world map game board, a dozen or so decks of cards, dozens of highly detailed miniatures, a massive pile of plastic coins, and bag of small d6 dice.  Just setting up the game will take you ten minutes or so as you place the board and then all the decks of cards.  Then you have to place your character figures at their starting cities and off you go.  Oh and don’t forget the Zeppelin, you have to have the Zeppelin.

The game is actually pretty simple at its heart, each player moves towards the location of an ancient artifact, and then upon reaching it draws danger cards and strives to overcome them and secure their bounty to earn fortune and glory (the afore mentioned plastic coins), 15 of which wins you the game.  Of course failure while facing a danger leaves you in a cliffhanger, and half the fun of the game is telling the story of your hero as they face and overcome these dangers and survive these dramatic cliffhangers, well that and throwing the other players curveballs just as they thing they’ve jumped into the lead.  In the advanced scenarios you will also have Nazi hoards fighting you for the treasure along with your fellow adventures, making for a free for all battle of wits and skill.

The card decks are one of my favorite parts, I’ve already come up with some great ways to use them in coming up with story hooks for the role playing games I run when not using them to play the game.  The various dangers, artifacts, and the random events contained in them make crafting a story for your hero a natural and seamless part of the game experience.  You never know if your next turn will bring a plane crash, a pit of quick sand, or maybe an attempt to sneak onto a Nazi Sub.  Whatever if brings however you know that it will be exciting and full of adventure.

I can’t recommend this game for everyone, it is a complicated game focused on something of a niche market.  However, if you have enjoyed previous titles from Flying Frog, or if you love the Pulps as I do, then it’s great game.  The retails price of  ninety-nine dollars is a tad steep, but you can find it on Amazon and from other online retailers for thirty to forty dollars cheaper if you look around a bit.  For me it was worth every penny, your mileage may vary, but give it a go the game is a blast.