Tag: CCGs

Bag of Cthulhu Figures

Intended for use in its Call of Cthulhu CCG, Fantasy Flight Games will be releasing its Bag of Cthulhu in April.

First introduced in our Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Core Set, we are making available this April our Bag of Cthulhu. Included in the Bag of Cthulhu, are six large Cthulhu figures (55mm) and 24 small figures (20mm). These miniature statues of Cthulhu are beautifully carved accessories that can be used as extra domain markers and success tokens for your Call of Cthulhu LCG games, or they can be used to ornament any game which incorporates eldritch horror.

Unlike the six specimens found in the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Core Set, the figures in the Bag of Cthulhu have been delicately inkwashed to ensure that you can spot every non-euclidian detail of these little gems.

These things look pretty cool for just $14.95 for the 6 large and 24 small figures,

Bag of Cthulhu

Hasbro’s Customizable Xevoz Action Figure Game

Hasbro has launched a line of action figures — Xevoz — that can be customized with interchangeable parts and then sent into battle against each other using a pretty innovative looking (if simplistic) combat system.

I’ve seen a couple of customizable action figures games (mostly collectible ones aimed at the RPG/CCG crowd) — none of which, to my knowledge, have been particuarly successful. This looks like something that might actually succeed depending on the pricing for the action figures.

A Really Customizable Card Game

I have never found customizable card games such as Magic: The Gathering all that compelling. I’ve played it a bit and still have some cards lying around somewhere but was never that impressed by them.

Now along comes an interesting experiment — a CCG where you can design your own cards on a website and then print them out and include them in your deck. The game is called DragonElves and is being produced by Lester Smith, who wrote the Dark Conspiracy role-playing game, and Jim Ward, who worked on the Dragonball Z CCG.

Here is how the game works: you buy a game collector’s tin that comes with 32 cards, a rulebook, and a scratch-off coupon. The coupon contains a code worth anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 points. Take the code and go to the DragonElves website, where you enter the code and the points are then added to your account.

From the website, you can design your own cards with different images, text, and abilities, with each of the cards costing points — the more powerful the card, the more points it costs. Then just print the cards out on your printer and you are good to go.

While this is an interesting experiment, there are a couple of problems that have to be overcome (and no indication how they will be overcome).

The obvious question is how will DragonElves prevent people from mocking up their own cards using Photoshop? Who needs points when you can just import the cards and images into a graphics program and make your own? (Sounds like a good market — how about a free online CCG a la some of the free RPGs out on the net).

The card design tools also need to be much improved. Maybe it is just because it’s in beta testing, but the tools used on the DragonElves site are very unfriendly at the moment.

Third, I wonder if the current crop of color printers is up to the task, especially since most color inkjet ink runs on contact with water, which might be a big problem around the gaming table. Whether or not people are willing to print their own cards is another issue — something cool that DragonElves (or anyone) might do is mockup and sell blank CCG card-style paper for inkjets and/or color lasers. Now that would be cool.