Fellow ancient nerds like myself likely have fond memories of Steve Jackson's now-classic game of global conspiracy and high-weirdness, Illuminati. I still have, and cherish, my copies of the original pocket box games, the reissues, and way too many of the New World Order collectable cards. — Read the rest

I grew up on RPGs, not tabletop strategy games, but the one exception was Car Wars, a dystopian science fiction game where you kit out vehicles with weapons and then fight them in giant duelling pits or in freeway battles. I loved Car Wars and played it like crazy.

The Secret Service raid on Austin's Steve Jackson Games started the fight over freedom and privacy online, and resulted in the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and EFF-Austin.

Nerd legends Steve Jackson Games have announced an Axe Cop adaptation for their kick-ass World of Munchkin game:

AXE COP exploded onto the net in 2010 with art by Ethan Nicolle and stories by his five-year-old brother Malachai. Axe Cop, Dinosaur Soldier, and the rest of their team fight crime .

Steve Jackson Games — the venerable and excellent publisher of strategy and role-playing games — is producing an amazing new digital line of products: games distributed as PDFs. What's amazing about that? Well, they're only available direct from SJG, and only by electronic cash. — Read the rest

For game nerds of the 80s, there are few games more beloved and legendary than Steve Jackson's Car Wars. I bought my pocket box edition at Hobby Crafters in Arlington, VA in 1983(?). It was for sale on a rack with other Steve Jackson and Metagamming baggied and pocket box games. — Read the rest

The last few weeks, I've been entertaining my two granddaughters, a four year old and a nine year old. In trying to think of what I could do with them, I immediately thought of games. But I have very little experience with games designed for younger children. — Read the rest

Here are some recent game releases of note and some of what I've been up to in hobby gaming over the past month or so.

Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk
Fantasy Flight Games, $60, Players, Ages: 12+
I have been looking forward to this book ever since it was announced by FFG following their retirement of the Netrunner card game, also set in the Android universe. — Read the rest

Here are some recent game releases of note and some of what I've been up to in hobby gaming over the past month or so.

Strontium Dog
Warlord Games, $63, 2-4 players, Ages: 12+
In this skirmish game from Warlord, you play the mutant search and destroy agents, the Strontium Dogs, from the pages of the venerable UK comic magazine, 2000 AD. — Read the rest

Here are some recent game releases of note and some of what I've been up to in hobby gaming over the past month or so.

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about my favorite gaming magazine, UK's Tabletop Gaming. — Read the rest

Stefan Jones writes, "While Dungeons & Dragons (1973) had its roots in miniatures wargaming, it really didn't coherently integrate boardgame-style maneuvers into its combat system. Steve Jackson changed that a few years later with Melee, the first segment in what would be a full-fledged fantasy role playing game system, The Fantasy Trip. — Read the rest

I've been getting a lot of review copies of games sent to me lately, so I thought, periodically, I'd share some of what looks interesting and fun to me with Boing Boing readers.

Stuffed Fables
Plaid Hat Games, $60, 2-4 players, Ages 7+

Stuffed Fables, by Mice and Mystics designer, Jerry Hawthorne, is a cooperative story-telling miniatures game that literally takes place inside of an illustrated storybook. — Read the rest

It was another exciting year for tabletop games and the nerds who love them. This was a year (plus) for re-releases of classic titles (Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Escape from Colditz, Axis & Allies) and one that saw a growing trend in pirate, tropical, jungle games and settings. — Read the rest

Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has published a heartfelt and defiant statement about the EFF's plans for the coming four years under a president who has demanded back-doors in crypto, promised mass surveillance and roundups of millions of people, and threatened the freedom of the press.

Phrack has been publishing erratically since 1985, but the four year gap between the previous issue, published in April 2012, and the current issue, published yesterday, was so long that many (me included) feared it might have died.

Johannes Grenzfurthner talks about Traceroute: On the Road with a Leitnerd(*)
(*) Leitnerd is a wordplay referring to the German term Leitkultur.

The Cthulhu Mythos is turned into a game of dice in Steve Jackson's Cthulhu Dice. The demonically beating heart of the game is a large, beautiful, and gem-like 12-sided die covered in Cthulhu-related runes. Each rune has a different effect in making one person or another go insane (or taking some of their insanity away from them). — Read the rest

How roleplaying games and fantasy fiction confounded the FBI, confronted the law, and led to a more open web

Game designer Rick Marazzani did an under-$20 raid on his local dollar store and built himself an incredible game-designer's toolkit with everything he needs to create an infinite variety of games in just as many styles; his reasoning for each piece is an especially telling glimpse of the game-designer's mindset:

Oh, those glorious gaming magazines! From Ares, to The General, to The Dragon, the original thrill and excitement of pen 'n' paper gaming is there to be experienced at the Internet Archive and other online haunts.