Steve Jackson Games Shows Off Their Latest Tabletop Games at SXSW (Video)

Video no longer available.

Steve Jackson Games occupies a special place in the history of gaming, not only for publishing some of the best-known tabletop games ever published, especially their distinctive microgames, but the company's failure to roll over in the aftermath of an FBI raid more than 20 years ago led to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Since 1980, Steve Jackson and company have been publishing games -- and a magazine, and even a book. The company is based in Austin, Texas, so while I was at SXSW, I had a chance to meet up with SJG's Chief Operating Officer and Managing Editor, Philip Reed, who gave a quick overview of what's new on the table. (Har har.)

Re:Summary & site conflicting

[betterunixthanunix]

The secret service was made responsible for computer crime investigations in 1984, as part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act (the same act that allows police forces to recycle the proceeds from asset forfeitures into their own budgets). The secret service was involved in numerous computer crime cases in the late 80s and early 90s, and had to back off somewhat after some high profile embarrassments. Somewhat telling that the bill that resulted in vast civil rights violations in America was passed in 1984, don't you think?

Transcript

[QuasiSteve]

Too bad it had a short running time, Castellan [sjgames.com] might be worth a look for somewhat older kids.

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Title: Timothy Lord Checks Out Steve Jackson Games' Latest
Description: Fun Fact: Steve Jackson made games before there were computers to play them on

[00:00] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." zooms out to the bottom right corner of a view of 3 custom dice from the game Zombie Dice.

[00:01] <TITLE>
A view of Timothy without his signature glasses.

[00:01] Timothy>
Not all the gaming action at south-by-southwest (SXSW) was electronic.
The Catan folks were on hand, and so was Steve Jackson Games.
Steve Jackson Games has been around since 1980; It's a real Austin stalwart.
Philip Reed COO of the company took a few minutes to lead us through the company's new tabletop game offerings.

[00:18] <TITLE>
The view changes to that of the interviewee, Philip Reed, sitting behind a desk with various board game items on it.

[00:18] Phil>
I'm Phil Reed with Steve Jackson Games and I'm gonna show you a couple of our upcoming releases.

[00:24] Phil>
Right this year we'll have Dino Hunt Dice out.
This is for kids 10 and up.
In the game you are going to go through and look for dinosaurs.
Like our Zombie Dice game, you will roll the dice, and you want to find dinosaurs so you capture them and bring them back to your zoo.
This dinosaur's hiding in the leaves, so if you keep going you're gonna roll the die again.
This dinosaur stepped on me.
If you get stepped on 3 times, your turn is over, and you don't get to take any of the dinosaurs home with you.
This is really quick, simple, should be out later this fall.

[01:05] Phil>
Also this year we have Castellan.
This is a two plaer strategy game where each player has cards, [...]

[01:17] <TITLE>
The view changes to a closer look at the cards in Phil's hands.

[01:17] Phil>
[...] and each player will have the exact same decks of cards.
The cards allow you to play [...]

[01:20] <TITLE>
The view changes back to Phil sitting at the table.

[01:20] Phil>
[...] pieces to build a castle.
On your turn you'll play a card, you'll add pieces to the castle.
You're trying to score locations, so you wanna fill a courtyard completely, so it's totally walled in.
At the end of the game this courtyard is worth 5 points - one for each tower.
The game takes about 30 minutes.
I think it's my favorite new game we have coming this year.

[01:46] Phil>
For things available in stores right now we have the latest Munchkin expansion; "Munchkin 8 - Half Horse, Will Travel".
This was designed by our Munchkin Tzar, Andrew Hackard and illustrated by John Kovalic.
It's stupid, silly, fun - it's everything you expect from Munchkin.

[02:07] Phil>
Hitting stores in the next couple of weeks is "The Good, The Bad, The Munchkin 2 - Beating a Dead Horse".
Because, well, that's what we like to do with things.

[02:19] Phil>
Also coming out at the same time will be Zombie Dice 2.
It's the first expansion for our Zombie Dice game.
These three dice fit right inside this cup.
You get Santa Claus, who might bring you presents or he might shoot you.
You also get the The Hunk and The Hottie - these two work together and if you've got one in your brains pile with the other one comes up a shotgun, the brains are rescued, he goes back into the cup, so they're dangerous.
Notice her fashionable high heels(!)

[02:52] Phil>
That's what we've got new.
Also this later year we'll have Munchkin Conan and Munchkin Apocalypse.

[02:57] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." fades into view in the bottom right corner and the background changes to the view of the three dice used at the beginning of the video.

Re:special place in my heart

[rreay]

For a number of years now Hero Games has put out a PDF of every book. They even offer PDF/physical sets

Re:He needs to re print...

[TechHawk]

FWIW, Ogre 6th edition is being worked on, hopefully to come out later this year. http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/products/ogre6e/ [sjgames.com]

Re:He's not a nice guy...

[tilante]

I wouldn't go so far as "full of shit", but there's almost certainly more to the story. For the curious, I'd suggest looking at SJ Games Online Policy: http://www.sjgames.com/general/online_policy.html [sjgames.com] There, you'll find that SJ Games encourages free fan-created tools for their games, but if you want to charge, they require that you get a license from them.