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LATEST
NEWS
Smugglers
of the Galaxy featured in Houston Chronicle
Our
game has recently been featured in the largest newspaper in our
hometown! To read the story on the Chronicle's website, you can
click HERE.
If the original source has expired, we have also archived the
story HERE.
Smugglers
of the Galaxy RULES 2.0 Published!
After
a few years' experience with this board game, Playus Maximus has
published a newly revised second edition of the rules. Unlike
Alpha Expansion, Rules 2.0 is designed to be a single set of
streamlined rules, playable without reference to the original
rules or any expansion materials. Nearly all previous optional
rules from Alpha Expansion are usable with 2.0, however.
Smugglers of the Galaxy Rules 2.0 is available as a FREE
download from www.playusmaximus.com
or simply click HERE.
Dayton
Ward and Kevin Dilmore Pen Rocket League Short Story
We're
proud to announce a Rocket League short story that has been
written by Star Trek novelists Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.
You can read their story, Enemy Unknown! now on the
official Rocket League
website!
KublaCon
Report
We
were quite pleased with the response at KublaCon
recently! We had several games of Smugglers
of the Galaxy scheduled and all of them filled up. In
one of them, 8 people signed up for a 6 player game.
Fortunately, someone wasn't using a space after all and there
was enough room in our game area to run two games simultaneously
- and after that even more showed up. Sales were wonderful
as well. This combined with continual reorders from
distributors seems to indicate that interest in Smugglers is
actually growing as more people hear about it.
We also ran two different adventures of Rocket
League at KublaCon recently: "The Mind Master" and
"The Icy Terror on Europa". Both were well
received and we had a blast as well. People seemed to like
the easy system and looked forward to getting the game.
If
you're in the area, be sure to come see us at PolyCon
XXIII this June 24-26, 2005!
Rocket
League Production Update
Which
brings us to when! Thank you all so much for the
understanding and patience you've shown. Still, we can
tell there are a lot of anxious people, based on the phone
calls, emails, and convention goers asking when the game will be
out. At this point, now that I (Daniel) have blown it on
several estimates, I'm reluctant to give any more!
However, I feel quite certain that we're very close.
Steady progress is being made each day (I just completed some of
the art tonight in fact), and the bulk is done. I'll be
sure and continue to place some special features and other info
on the site as we get closer, as a bonus to those who check back
and are waiting. By the way, even though most of the best
stuff I'm trying to save for the book itself, some of the bits
and info you see here and on our forums won't be found anywhere
else!
DundraCon
2005 Report
We
just got back from DundraCon
where much fun was had! While Playus Maximus didn't have a
booth of their own, Games Unplugged and Firefly Games
were thankfully selling Smugglers
of the Galaxy through their own booths, and I (Daniel)
played with convention goers in open gaming. Response and
sales were surprisingly decent considering the lack of a booth!
 We
also ran two sessions of Rocket
League: The Thrilling Roleplaying Game. The first one
was titled "The Icy Terror from Beyond Europa"
and the second was "The Mind Master".
Julie co-GMed with me in the first one and was incredible in
preparations with all the details throughout the con. Both
games were fully booked and all the players were a real treat to
play with because they seemed really excited about the 50s
style sci-fi genre, adding in their own clever and entertaining
elements and roleplay. There were some exciting and highly
funny moments as well. People in both sessions commented
favorably on the simple game
mechanic and were asking about the game's release, so hopefully
we can have Rocket League out soon.
As
usual, Julie and I had the chance to get some playing and
shopping in for fun too. We played together in a Call of
Cthulhu adventure called "Into the
Ether"
which was very fun and the GM, Catherine Klikoff, had a creative
way of handling our sanity (or lack thereof). I actually
was able to get some Star Wars D6 in Saturday (thanks George
Gardea!) and the next day Julie got into a game of Realms
of Wor by Three Sages Games, reporting much fun thanks to
Dave Wainio's good GMing, her fellow players, and RoW's nice
game world and innovative system.
Smugglers
Review in Spielekurier
For
our German friends, a new review of Smugglers
of the Galaxy is appearing in the latest issue of the German
Print Game Journal Spielekurier.
We don't speak German, but we're told that it was a positive
review :)
Rocket
League Production Update
Our
workload has been considerable for such a small company (with
day jobs no less). With all the graphics and such,
finishing up Rocket League has been quite a challenge. So,
to help things along, we've brought on another artist to the
team: David Lopez. David is a highly experienced and
skilled graphic artist who will be handling the page layout for
Rocket League. This should free up Daniel to finish the
maps and illustrations, and hopefully get Rocket League out
fairly soon. David has a graphic design business and his
company site is at www.adplanetcreative.com.
We know a lot of our fans are looking forward to Rocket League
and we thank you all for your patience!
Winner
of 2004 Short Story Contest Announced
Congratulations
to Daron Patton, the winner of our Short Story contest! Daron's
exciting story, Escape from Mnemosyne, can be read HERE.
"Smugglers
of the Galaxy" Rules Now Available in German
Thanks
to translator Ferdinand Köther, the rules for the Smugglers of
the Galaxy boardgame are now available in the German language,
as a free download! Click
here to download the PDF file.
GenCon
South California 2005 Report
We
just got back from GenCon in Anaheim, where we were selling
Smugglers of the Galaxy at the GPA booth. We also ran two
sessions of Rocket League: The Thrilling Roleplaying - the
product's first ever public showing (Rocket League is planned
for release in early 2005). Those who played Smugglers in
our scheduled games seemed to enjoy it very much and several of
them bought the game, with a few more telling us they planned on
checking it out online because they would be traveling by
plane. Many thanks to all who played!
More players
enjoying Smugglers of the Galaxy!
Our
two Rocket League sessions were of the same scenario, titled
"The Mind Master" and the players seemed to enjoy that
game as well. Many of them seemed very excited about the
genre and really got into the feel of it - it was quite a blast,
filled with many hilarious and fun-filled moments.
In
the dealer area, it was very nice meeting and spending time with
the other GPA members we shared the booth with. Daniel
Wagster was very nice and quite helpful in many ways - thanks
Dan! Dave and Steve from Three Sages Games were
great to meet and speak with (and they've got some great
products), as was Ken from Active Minds Solutions. Many
thanks to the GPA for providing their valuable services.
Daniel at the GPA
booth.
On
a side note, we also got to play in some other games and do a
lot of other fun stuff in between our Playus Maximus duties, as
you can see...
Daniel was
helping the Ghostbusters track down a report of a
class 4 full-roaming phantasm...
But apparently
ghostbusting is a violation of Imperial law...
So he was brought
taken to the Dark Lord of the Sith.
But fortunately
Darth Maul spoke on his behalf
(Ray Park was a really nice guy who tolerated all my questions).
Rocket
League Release Update
Well,
it unfortunately looks like we're going to have to move the
release date of Rocket League back to after the holidays, but
still certainly in the early part of the first quarter of the
year. Our apologies to the many who have been so
enthusiastic about the game, but many of you have told us that
you'd much prefer to see a delay in release than have the game
rushed and not be as good as it could be.
Rocket
League is turning out to be a very nice game with a good
collection of content, maps, resources, and top notch art, but a
lot of work for a small company such as ourselves. We
first had a lot of improvements to incorporate in the system,
thanks to our play testers' input. Then we ran into some
printer issues and now, between personal commitments and with
holidays coming up, we're running into a lot of time crunch
issues with layout - but production is still pushing along
nicely. I decided that this game deserves the fullest
quality and attention we can give it and there's no way we're
letting it go out the door with less than that. So hold on
to any relevant gift certificates Santa brings during the
holidays, because I think (and hope) you will be pleased!
We
will continue to update the official Rocket League website with
more goodies ( www.playusmaximus.com/rocketleague.htm
) and keep you all up to date. As mentioned before, almost
all of the writing is complete, most of the artwork, and we're
now down to layout so getting it out in the early 1st quarter of
2005 should be no problem.
On
a side note, we will still be running several sessions of Rocket
League at conventions, including GenCon South California, which
takes place this December 2-5 in Anaheim, CA so feel free to
drop by for this first public look at the game!
ConQuest
2004 Report
August 21, 2004
ConQuest
was a lot of fun. Thanks to Aldo at Impressions for running the dealer room -
he's always a pleasure to meet and work with. As it turns out, we completely
sold out of the Smugglers of the Galaxy
units we brought! We didn't expect to sell near that many, but I guess we
should have brought more. Still, the last unit was sold not too long
before closing time and we sold our demo copy after that so it was spread out
fairly well. Plus we were sure to direct folks to other places to get the
game so everyone who wanted one should still be able to get it, of course.
As always, it was fun to see folks playing Smugglers in open gaming, having a
lot of fun. We also met some people who bought Smugglers at previous
conventions, who told us they were having a great time with the game, and that's
always nice to hear. We also tried to inform people about Rocket
League, coming soon.
Smugglers
of the Galaxy: Alpha Expansion Now Available
August 21, 2004
Check out the new expansion to Smugglers
of the Galaxy! This free PDF download features a custom character creation
rules, additional optional rules, expanded strategy guide, and print pages for
money, improved spaceship sheets, character sheets, and more. Click
here to download!
PolyCon
XXII Report
July 6, 2004
Julie and I returned yesterday from PolyCon,
held at California Polytech State University in San Luis Obispo, California. It
was the most unusual convention we’ve been to, but also one of the most fun!
Judging by the roman numeral after the name, it appears that PolyCon has been
going for at least 22 years now.
PolyCon is a small convention (perhaps between 2-300
attendees?) but there are sure a lot of advantages to that. We were able to get
into every game we wanted to and had loads of fun (Julie played a total of 27
hours in-game playing Call of Cthulhu, broken up into different unrelated
sessions). This, all while selling far more copies of Smugglers
of the Galaxy than one would expect for the attendance level. We held
several open games of Smugglers and got a lot of wonderful comments from happy
players (including one, admittedly over-enthusiastic, "best game ever"
proclamation, haha). It has become clear to us that, whenever given the chance
to expose people to a personal introduction of first-hand Smugglers play, that
the interest for the game soars, and PolyCon’s friendly & personable
structure gives retailers that opportunity.
There were also a plethora of fun sessions, cool open
gaming activities, decently priced food, contests, an auction, and BBQ (even one
totally free BBQ meal!). On top of all that, the folks that run PolyCon are some
of the nicest people I’ve ever seen running a con - and with loads of
enthusiasm for what they do. I highly recommend PolyCon to any fortunate enough
to make this convention in the future!
Playus Maximus
Holds Contests for Best Short Story in Smugglers of the
Galaxy Universe
June 19, 2004
Join the contest for best short story today.
RPG.net
Reviews Smugglers of the Galaxy
June 9, 2004
Reviewer Daron Patton has
just reviewed Smugglers of the Galaxy at RPG.net. In his review,
Daron states, "...Smugglers of the Galaxy is an excellent game. I
congratulate Playus Maximus on coming up with a fun, playable game that captures
the spirit of space smugglers we have come to love in movies, tv shows and video
games..." Click here to
see the complete review.
KublaCon
2004 Report
May 31, 2004
KublaCon 2004 was a load of
fun for us and, although we have been to many cons, this one happened to be our
first convention since Smugglers of the Galaxy premiered. We almost missed our
chance to make KublaCon this year but Darren Watts with Hero Games was very kind
to offer a portion of their table to us (he and Ben Seeman at Hero are nice guys by the
way, and they know their stuff - it was a pleasure meeting and hanging out with
them).
According to the general
grapevine concerning sales expectations and the current attendance level, we
thought we'd sell only a couple of copies of Smugglers. The main thing we were
going for was exposure more than immediate sales, but just in case we brought
two cases (16 copies). We were thrilled to see that, not only did we sell
almost all of them, but enthusiasm for the product seemed really high. We
ran a few games on Saturday and Sunday and had a good showing for all of
them. Even in our last game we were asked if there would be more.
While we couldn't run any more, some who bought their own copies were playing in
open gaming afterwards.
People seemed very happy with
the artwork, but they also seemed happy with the overall options and diversity
of the game. We even got some comments calling it a "great"
game. Having put so much work into something, and then having gone through
so much with the production, sales, and distribution, I can't express what a joy
it was to see so many people laughing, smiling, and having a good time with
something we created.
On a side note, Julie and I (Daniel) finally got into some games after the dealer room closed at 6pm on
Sunday. Julie got into two Cthulhu sessions in a row, and I got into a
great Ghostbusters session (you can thank us for saving you all from the
Peruvian god of agriculture). After my game ended I went back down to the open gaming room around
11pm and was surprised to see folks were still down there playing
Smugglers. Thanks to everyone there for playing Smugglers and for their
business!
Playus
Maximus welcomes Esdevium Games
June 3, 2004
Esdevium Games, a
major game distributor in the UK, has just picked up Smugglers of the Galaxy.
Playus Maximus appreciates Esdevium's business! Game shops that order
through Esdevium should now be able to have Smugglers in their stores as
well.
Smugglers
of the Galaxy
Now Available for Purchase
May 31, 2004
Hot off the press, the
adventure board game Smugglers of the Galaxy is now available for
purchase! Gamers can check with their local gaming shops or order
online. If your shop isn't carrying Smugglers currently, they should be
able to order it for you through any one of several major game distributors,
including Alliance, Blackhawk, Centurion, Diamond, Gameboard, ABC Northwest,
AAAAces, Alladin, Dynamic, Hobbies Hawaii, JedKo, Mad Al, New Century, Titan, or
Wright Ones. Playus Maximus is continually seeking new distribution
routes as well.
Dodging military
battlecruisers, escaping
space monsters, and blasting bounty hunters are all in a days work for
you, as captain of your own space freighter in this exciting board game
for up to six players. Just a few features include Space Trading, Smuggling,
Piracy, Bounty Hunting, and Upgrading your spaceship. Click
here to see pics of the game and learn more about its play!
WonderCon 2004
Report
May 2, 2004
Well, we just got back from
WonderCon in San Francisco where there was much fun to be had and lots of neat
things to see. Wondercon is actually a comic book convention (rather than
a gaming convention) but Aldo at Impressions tells me that they are trying to
bring in some more of the gaming crowd, since the two groups (comic people &
gaming people) obviously have a lot of overlapping interests. So, we were
actually there thanks to an invitation from Aldo Ghiozzi with Impressions
consolidators, who graciously extended an invitation to us to join him in an
open gaming area he had obtained for the convention (thanks Aldo!).
"Smugglers of the
Galaxy" was just going on
the press so we didn't have any demo copies available yet, but we took printer
spec sheets, fliers, and promotional postcards down there and explained that the
new game was coming out on May 19th. We got some more people preordering
and a lot more people taking some of the promo cards, who seemed very excited by
the game's concept and graphics. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our
table and gave us some of their time!
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