Search Results for: Games Plus

Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

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Free RPG Day is not something I can remember ever taking part in…. mostly because the only local gaming store here in St. Charles died ten years ago. But when I saw the Facebook announcement from Floyd at Games Plus on Friday (above), I was intrigued enough to make the 30-mile drive to Mount Prospect Saturday morning. Games Plus is easily the best gaming store in the the Chicago area — perhaps in the entire country. It’s the home of the Games…

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Adventures in Gaming Discovery: The Games Plus 2020 Spring Auction

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Yesterday I attended the 2020 Spring Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois. I exhibited more self control than I usually do, but that’s not saying much. My budget was $700, and after seven hours I reluctantly put away my bidding card, when my purchases finally tipped the scales at $1,000. That’s considerably less than I spent in 2019 or 2018, but it still filled eight boxes, and it took the combined skills of three gaming professionals to Tetris them into my…

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The Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction, Part Two

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Two months ago I assembled a photographic record of the games I brought home from the Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction. I didn’t do a final count, but it was roughly 100 boxed games, and several boxes of RPG gamebooks, totalling some 15 boxes. In that first piece I tried to capture the overwhelming experience of sitting in the front row for seven hours as thousands of new and used SF & fantasy games flashed by. It’s a deep immersion in the…

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The Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction: Part One

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A few of the treasures acquired at the 2019 Games Plus Spring Auction I’ve been attending the Games Plus Auction in Mount Prospect, Illinois ever since David Kenzer first told me about it, when we worked at Motorola in the late 90s. So, twenty years, give or take. I’ve been writing about it here ever since my first report in 2012 (in the appropriately titled “Spring in Illinois brings… Auction Fever.”) The four-day auction occurs twice a year, in Spring and Fall.  Each…

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The Games Plus 2013 Spring Auction

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Tomorrow is one of the highlights of my year — the Spring Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois, one of the finest game stores in the Midwest, about an hour’s drive from my house. I’ve written about the Spring and Fall 2012 auctions (in “Spring in Illinois brings… Auction Fever” and The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games, respectively) and I’ve been looking forward to returning this year. The Games Plus auctions are just about the friendliest I’ve…

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When Your First Language is Role-Playing Games

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A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords by David “Zeb” Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, Tom Moldvay, Lawrence Schick, and Edward Carmien (TSR, 1986), and Oriental Adventures: Night of the Seven Swords by Jon Pickens, David “Zeb” Cook, Harold Johnson, Rick Swan, Edward Carmien, and David James Ritchie (TSR, 1986). Cover art by Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell Always a writer, the first significant things I wrote were role-playing adventures, some for old-school Dungeons & Dragons, but mostly for what the kids…

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OLD MOON QUARTERLY Issue V Review plus a Kickstarter for VII and VIII

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Old Moon Quarterly magazine, Issue #5 (138p). Cover art by Derek Moore Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of dark fantasy and weird sword-and-sorcery. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by both swordsmen and swordswomen. Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022 led by Editor-in-Chief Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas Wilcox. This May 2023,…

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Three Thousand (plus) Words of Longing: “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” and Three Thousand Years of Longing

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Three Thousand Years of Longing (United Artists, 2022) One of the leading fantasy movies of 2022 was Three Thousand Years of Longing, directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame, and starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, who surely need no introduction. That might have been enough recommendation for me, but much more important was the source material, A. S. Byatt’s lovely novella “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye.” The novella was first published in the Paris Review in 1994,…

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When Disney Meets Mad Max: Aftermath: an Adventure Book Game by Plaid Hat Games

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Gen Con 2020 is, as of this writing, still scheduled to take place July 30 – August 2, 2020. But now that other major events, such as the massive San Diego Comic Con have been canceled due to the threat of the coronavirus, I expect it won’t be long before Gen Con is canceled as well. I hope it isn’t, but frankly I think the only thing keeping it on the schedule at this point is blind optimism. I’m enormously grateful…

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The Games of Gen Con 2018

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As you walk through the convention hall at Gen Con, moving from demo to demo and panel to panel, you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the advertisements everywhere, trying to catch your attention for the latest big game. Usually, there are one or two big new games that just seem to overwhelm the convention, often tied into big properties. This year, the big new game at Gen Con wasn’t new. Not really. Pathfinder has long had a strong, even…

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