The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Board Game Brings Leatherface To A Tabletop Near You
Gen-Con has come and gone. The gaming conference — think Comic-Con for tabletop fans or Super Bowl weekend for people who live their lives one D20 at a time — is one of the biggest events of the year and always brings with it a few notable intersections of entertainment and tabletop. And the runup to this year's Gen Con was no different, with big news from the world of collectible card games and high-profile actual plays.
In this month's edition of Cardboard Cinema, we are slashing our way through news about "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and blasting a "Critical Role" update from the biggest screen possible. We're also setting the stage for an epic "EVE Online" adaptation and allowing ourselves, finally, to be swept up in the hype around "Magic: The Gathering" and their Universes Beyond.
Leatherface is coming to a tabletop near you
Next year marks a major milestone for fans of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." Tobe Hooper's legendary horror film, which was released in 1974, will celebrate its 50th anniversary — and unsurprisingly, licensed adaptations are not far behind. Look no further than Gun Interactive, the publisher behind the wildly popular "Friday the 13th: The Game," who will release the first licensed "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" video game since 1983 later this month.
But board game fans will have their fun, too. Horror publisher Trick or Treat Studios will also bring the slasher to a tabletop near you with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Board Game." Designer Scott Rogers is best known for another licensed adaptation, Ravensburger's "ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo." Here players will work together to survive the dangerous machinations of the game itself. If you cannot avoid Leatherface or other members of the Sawyer — excuse me, "Slaughter" — family, you may soon find yourself on the business end of a meat hook.
Those curious about the pedigree of Trick or Treat Studios should note that this is not their first board game release. The studio has previously worked with notable designers like Reiner Knizia on a handful of reimagined classics, and the studio continues to build on its official licenses with a "Halloween" adaptation also set to hit this fall. But if you have always dreamed of being chased by Leatherface across the fields of Bastrop County — well, then, I suppose this one's for you.
Cinemark gets into the Critical Role business
If there is a dominant force in the world of actual plays, it is Critical Role Productions. The company behind "Critical Role" has helped raise the profile of "Dungeons & Dragons" worldwide, with their popular tabletop campaigns even launching an animated adaptation, "The Legend of Vox Machina," at Amazon Studios. And befitting their presence as an industry innovator, Critical Role Productions is launching the second season of its new series in style, releasing the first episode of "Candela Obscura" in movie theaters nationwide.
Earlier this year, the team at in-house imprint Darrington Press announced the Illuminated Worlds System, a new roleplaying system designed to support shorter campaigns across multiple settings. "Candela Obscura" was the first game to run on this platform. Set in an industrial region known as The Fairelands, each episode of "Candela Obscura" explores a self-contained mystery as the party takes on the role of an ancient order of investigators. The new season — which will include tabletop icon Brennan Lee Mulligan in addition to "Critical Role" regulars — marks an important crossover between the world of actual plays and mainstream entertainment.
If you live near a participating Cinemark, you can purchase a ticket to the "Candela Obscura" premiere on August 31 and watch the four-plus hours of the first episode of Chapter 2. For many actual play fans, this will be the first opportunity to see a campaign hosted on the big screen, but the rest of us will still be able to watch the show on YouTube's video-on-demand service as it is released. But regardless of how you consume your actual plays, the art of people rolling dice has never found a bigger stage.
EVE Online: The Board Game will ruin your offline life
Some video games you pick up and put down. Others dominate your life. For two decades, "EVE Online" — a space-based MMORPG from CCP Games — has presented players with a world so persistent that the conflicts between characters and corporation often bled into the real world. Google the best moments in game history and you will find "Game of Thrones" levels of intrigue and battles that cost players hundreds of thousands of real-life dollars. All of this has inspired a long-running "joke" between myself and friends that we will disappear into "EVE Online" completely should our lives ever take a turn for the worse.
So when CCP Games announced a board game adaptation of its popular MMORPG this year, some players must have jumped at the chance to play a lower-stakes version of the game. The board game will be produced by Titan Forge Games — creators of the "Lobotomy" franchise — with a Kickstarter set to publish later this year. According to the website, the game will build on its source material and explore the "intricacies of interstellar politics, resource management, and tactical combat."
With its promise of space politics and combat in equal measure, "EVE Online: The Board Game" has earned almost immediate comparisons to "Twilight Imperium." That game is often regarded as the gold standard of 4X titles — games that encourage exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination — and is responsible for its own share of real-world tensions. But if "EVE Online" can tap into even a fraction of the intrigue of its source material, CCP Games and Titan Forge may have a strong competitor on its hands.
Everything is Magic: The Gathering now
Since a big chunk of my discretionary spending started going to the tabletop industry, my one saving grace has been my lack of interest in "Magic: The Gathering." Even when Wizards of the Coast added "Lord of the Rings" as one of its first Universe Beyond collaborations, it was not enough to spark my interest outside a passing curiosity towards the fate of the One Ring card. So while I might spend money on the occasional Kickstarter or miniatures package, at least I was not pouring adult money into a collectible card game.
Of course, WotC is nothing if not persuasive, and with a slew of new titles on the way, I can finally feel my resolve weakening. Over the past few weeks, the company has announced a slew of new titles, with tie-ins to franchises like "Doctor Who," "Final Fantasy," and even "Jurassic World." The thing that might get me to finally purchase a pack is the "Fallout" crossover. As a fan of at least one board game adaptation, I would love to see how that universe translates to card games, too.
For the wallet-shy among us, the "Fallout" releases will also come in the form of commander decks, meaning that players will not need to chase expensive booster packs to collect their favorite "Fallout" cards. But with an aggressive multiyear release plan already in progress, one thing's for sure: sooner or later, "Magic: The Gathering" will adapt a franchise that you, too, cannot ignore. Might as well start saving now.