Have a great birthday, Shaun!
07.03.2026 13:58
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Have a great birthday, Shaun!
For the curious, more pictures of the box's contents can be found in this thread:
Cover of a Korean-language version of the Basic D&D adventure module "King's Feast," featuring a cloaked, sword-wielding warrior and a female elven archer posing against a golden background. The TSR name is nowhere to be seen; neither is the D&D logo, which has been replaced with a screaming red "Role Playing Game" in gothic lettering.
The arrangement didn't last: Communication Group went bust in the aftermath of the '97 Asian financial crisis, and according to some Korean posters, was publishing D&D material without a license towards the end, which might explain this extra-sketchy version of the "King's Feast" adventure.
A relic from a brief, strange period of time when D&D, Crystania, and Japan's RPG heavyweight Sword World were all licensed by the same Korean publisher, the imaginatively-named "Communication Group."
Washed-out photo of a "Limited Edition" Korean-language boxed set split into two halves: one with a soaring dragon promoting an "Advanced Set" of D&D rules, the other featuring a character collage from Group SNE's Crystania RPG.
The thing that'll forever keep me poking into the lesser-known corners of RPG history is the prospect of unearthing buck-wild artifacts like this: a "Limited Edition" Korean boxed set from the '90s bundling Basic D&D's Companion and Master Rules with the Japanese Crystania RPG.
These Rave Generation Rob Liefeld-level tactical Red Bull holsters are absolutely sending me.
By the time these bootlegs came out in 1996, the Basic D&D line was straight up dead in the water in Japan. The only books still being published at that point were replay collections, and Media Works was a year away from losing their license entirely.
Shinwa left literally dozens of Basic D&D products unlocalized when they imploded and Media Works threw in the towel after translating just three adventures, so itโs not surprising that the fans stepped in and did it themselves.
You can also do a search directly for "RPGใใฉใดใณ" to get the complete list:
You know what men wore a lot of back in the โ20s?
Hats.
Wiztographer is out! It's a map-making game where you're a wizard building out a world you can later use in the fantasy role-playing game of your choice. There's also a rule unlock system inspired by legacy board games. It works solo AND in a group, so take a look!
yourgmjack.itch.io/wiztographer
Picture of the Sieg Zion game box originally posted on FromJapan.com, which depicts a cockpit-eye view of mobile suit pilot locking onto a target from behind.
Very exciting. Any relation to the RPG/wargame hybrid Tsukuda Hobby put out in 1990? Given their history of sourcing designs from university circles, I wouldn't be surprised if they picked it up for publication - especially since they'd just fallen out with ORG, who produced their last Gundam RPG.
Had this one running on a few evening drives this month. Always fun to see a creator you know showing off a whole new set of skills.
And if you don't actually enjoy exploration and experimentation and just want to skip ahead to the part where you collect kudos for the 100% ORIGINAL DON'T STEAL Ghibli avatar you boiled a small lake to generate... well, there's plenty of other endeavors out there. Go find one that speaks to you.
I've got pictures on envelopes and index cards, on the cardboard backing of notepads, in the margins of class handouts. I've got sketches that were colored with highlighters because they were the only thing to hand at the time. If you love the process of making art, you'll find a way to make it.
A pile of eight headshots and character sketches on A4 paper, primarily in pencil, alternating between comic book and anime styles.
The backs of the same pages, revealing that all of the previous sketches were done on spare printouts and scratch paper.
I'm about a million and a half years late rolling up to the "art is too expensive!!11!" dunking contest, but seriously: looking back, about 80% of everything I drew as a teenager was done with cheap pencil or a Bic ballpoint on the back of an old printout.
I can't read stories like this without thinking of my own dad, who was already happily braising his brain in a deep pot of Russian-funded anti-vax/NATO/5G hysteria. This current generation of unregulated chatbots would have absolutely broken him.
Oh, hey. My cousin painted that one during his brief stint in the German gaming industry. Good times.
I ran across this article while trying to track down some biographical information on Kondล last year, but definitely appreciate the thought.
My pleasure - the Japanese gamebook market is a fascinating and extremely underexplored portion of geekdom, so it's always nice to see other people taking an interest in it.
Between 1985 and 1987, hundreds of domestically authored gamebooks flooded the Japanese market as dozens of publishers tried to jump on the Fighting Fantasy bandwagon at once. There's a fairly comprehensive statistical analysis of the genre's boom and bust if you're interested in a deeper dive:
Strictly speaking, the Japanese gamebook boom was already starting to cool by the time Warlock JP got into full gear - Yasuda and Yutaka were therefore relatively quick to pivot the magazine to broader RPG coverage, initially focusing on Tunnels & Trolls.
Small point of correction: while Yasuda spearheaded Warlock's Japanese edition, its actual editor-in-chief was Tama Yutaka, another pioneering figure in Japan's tabletop scene. In 1989, Yutaka was replaced by Kลshi Kondล, best known as the founder of game design company Adventure Planning Service.
The game's currently going for 35% off as part of Steam's Winter Sale, but you can also grab a demo on Itch if you're so inclined.
Screenshot from Mohrta showing the chunky, coffin-wielding golem Ru'uk posed in front of the white-stoned remains of a mausoleum.
Screenshot from Mohrta centered on the vendor Bra'ago, a green-furred horned lion with a fondness for hookah smoke.
Screenshot from Mohrta's Brume Factory level. A distant lavafall provides glowing red illumination to a towering assembly of giant gears.
Screenshot from Mohrta's Festival of War level, showing a pair of hulking, harlequin-esque figures in bulky maroon outfits and pointed hoods guarding a circus tent.
Capping the year by blitzing through Mohrta, a GZDoom-powered Souls-lite sheathed in pleasingly chunky retro-visuals channeling equal parts '80s anime and Metal Hurlant-ish weirdo-fantasy. It's scrappy in places, but so committed to its vision that it's easy to overlook the occasional rough edge.
The box of the mighty โBarbarianโ fireworks battery, featuring 280 shots and all the sub-Conan imagery you could possibly want.
Nahhh, 25 Schuss is bush league firepower โround these parts.
German "Cyborg" fireworks package from 2019, showcasing a cheaply-rendered 'borg lady with a glowing Terminator eye.
Reject modernity, etc.
Picture of a German fireworks product called "Jokers (sic) Inferno," dominated by an evil clown made up of equal parts fire and AI slop.
Oh, yeah. Predictably enough, imAI was all over fireworks packaging this year, replacing the usual "early 2000s graphics card box" aesthetic with a Twitter feed's worth of garish, over-rendered slop.
Photo of a package of fireworks, featuring a fire-eyed (and flagrantly AI-generated) cyber-wolf surmounted by the words โWILD THROAT.โ
Yโknow, Iโm used to a bit of questionable naming when it comes to German fireworks, butโฆ
In all honesty, much of this wouldn't really surface unless you can read Japanese. Lodoss was enough of a cultural touchstone for Kadokawa to put out an entire 264-page book of interviews with key personnel behind the franchise in 2018, but in-depth English-language sources are pretty scarce.