Our game was called Laser Mummies.

The following rules are those we came up with on the fly during the design contest. So, without Further ado…

LAZER MUMMIES!

So there’s a board like the one above, a numberless generic spinner, and a 20-point game round tracker. There’s a bag full of slothing size tags, labeled 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, S, M, L, and XXL. There’s a die from the Heroquest board game. There are two doorways from the Heroquest game. There are four Shield tokens, with numbers 1, 1, 2, and 3 on their backs. There’s a ruler to use for movement direction. And there are three Mummy figurines.

So there’s two players. Each has a mob of dudes they control, including a large handful of footmen, three elites, and one signature Big Hitter (these pieces were from Lord of the Rings Risk, I believe). Each side has two laser turrets.

GAME SETUP:

Each side places their Portals on their sides, and then places three of their footmen anywhere in their zone.

HOW TO WIN:

To win, accomplish any one of the following:
* Destroy Two Mummies
* End round 20 with the most points
* Direct a Mummy to destroy enemy’s gate; if enemy has no gate and no units in play, the enemy loses.

GAME FLOW:

Game flows in 20 rounds. In each round, both players get a turn. On a player’s turn, the player rolls a die. The die has three results, which do the following:

* Shield – Flip over a shield token, and gain that many Unit Points which must be spent immediately.
* Skull – Either add a new mummy to the field and immediately move it, or move all current mummies on the field.
* Black Sigil – Place a new laser on your side, and then ALL lasers on the board fire at the same time.

At the end of round 20, if no one has already won or lost, then use the points to determine winner.

UNIT POINTS:

When you flip a shield, you will get from 1 to 3 unit points which must be immediately used. A unit point allows you to move any single unit on the field in a straight line. Take the ruler and make a bee-line towards your target anywhere in the board. The moment the unit comes into physical contact with anything, it is halted. If the obstacle is an enemy unit, roll combat.

You can also use unit points to add new units to the board, placing them anywhere in your field. The cost in unit points is equal to the unit’s Value. You have unlimited footmen, but can only ever have a max of three elites and one Big Hitter on your side at any one time.

When all shields have been revealed, flip them back down and then mix them up, so they can be used again.

UNIT COMBAT:

When a unit encounters another unit, both sides roll dice based on that unit. The results:

* Skull – deal one normal hit to the opponent
* Shield – block one normal hit from your opponent
* Black Sigil – Poison hit! Deal a shield-bypassing hit to your opponent.

When a unit takes hits = it’s toughness, it is killed. When you kill a unit, you score points and that unit is returned to your opponent’s general unit pool.

MUMMY MANAGEMENT:

When a mummy is placed on the field, it begins in the center circle, and then immediately moves in a random direction. When a mummy moves, spin the spinner and then choose which mummy to move. The mummy then moves in that random direct until it hits an obstacle or encounters the game board edge. If it hits an object, it destroys whatever it hits, including other mummies. If it hits the edge, it stops moving.

If there are multiple mummies on the board and you choose to “move” instead of “spawn” when the Skull is rolled on your turn, then you must spin separately for each mummy currently on the table, and move them one at a time. You can spin before choosing which mummy to move.

FIRING THE LASERS:

When a black sigil is rolled on your turn, you can place a laser on one of your two corners of the game field. You have at most two turrets you can place. When a laser is placed, after placement it and all other lasers fire. Your lasers fire first, applying a hit to anything they contact (except portals). If you shoot an enemy laser, you destroy that laser before it can fire. After yours are fired, the enemy’s lasers also fire.

Don’t cross the streams! If either of your lasers crosses streams, both lasers explode. Crossing streams with your opponent’s lasers has no effect.

SCORING POINTS:

You score points by killing enemy units. Footmen, Elites, and Big Hitters destroyed earn you a number of draws from the score bag equal to the unit’s value. The numbered score pieces are kept and added up to determine your point score. The lettered score pieces give you extra immediate unit points. S = 1, M = 2, L = 3, and XXL = 4. Lettered pieces have no score value.

UNITS:

Footmen – Roll one Die, Toughness 1, Value 1
Elites – Roll one Die, Toughness 1, Value 2
Big Hitters – Roll Three Dice, Toughness 3, Value 3
Laser Turrets – Deal 1 hit to everything in it’s path, including mummies; destroys enemy turrets
Mummies – Destroy whatever it contacts (including portals), Toughness 2, can only be hit by laser turrets

This past Gamestorm (GS11) was host to many wonderful moments of gaming, and I am proud and delighted to say that one particular game rises above all others of my recent memory in sheer awesomeness. That session was the Jesus Camp Massacre, a demo game I ran of Cannibal Contagion.

This post has taken me a long time to get up for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I keep coming back and re-editing and re-writing it. It has to be perfect – the session was just that awesome. So now, several months later, I’ve decided to re-write it one last time, and come hell or high water I will be posting this AP review today. I’ll warn you all now: This review will likely offend some people. Read at your own risk.

For GameStorm, I designed three distinct demo games to run, and Jesus Camp was the last of the three. In this game, I set up the Contagion based on a supernaturally-infused variant of the infectious contagion that is Jesus’s Love. In this scenario, I decided to set up seven pregenerated characters and put them through the horrors of a twisted Jesus Camp. Six players showed up, but fortunately one of the characters was easily left out. The results, as you will see, were awesome.

The Six Survivors:

• Sadie – The Goth Girl, in love with Bross
• Missy – A pregnant Cheerleader, In love with Devon (the kid’s father), dating Bross
• Bross – The Football Hero, dating Missy, in love with Devon
• Devon – The Reformed Ex-Gay, worshipper of Jesus, father of Missy’s child, in love with Bross
• Mitch – The boydyke outcast, in love with Missy
• Zeke – the gamer nerd, secretly plays D&D with Bross, in love with Sadie

I created them each with loving care, and set up a pretty complex network of relationships. As you can see above, there’s a lot of conflict, and the extra work I put into setting up these interactions and backgrounds beforehand really made the game all that more fantastic.

The game was played out over the span of five mostly action-and-drama-packed scenes. I’ll give a quick run-down of them, with some highlights of the things that I loved the most.

Scene 1: Drunken Masters

The game opened on the last night of Jesus Camp. Tomorrow morning would be the Grand Revival, followed by refreshments and then everyone being picked up by their parents and taken home. The Goal of the Scenario: Survive the Night!

When the curtain opened, the players were just leaving the Saturday night revival. All the prayer groups were old to go find somewhere and reflect together upon the evening’s lessons, and their group (the Exodus group) snuck off to sit around a distant tree and drink some snuck-in beer with their buddy Pablo (an Ally, also part of the prayer group). They had barely cracked open the case, however, when the bitchtastic all-girl Genesis prayer group showed up and caused a ruckus, threatening to “tell on them” to Youthpastor Cody (the director of Jesus Camp operations; aka “YPC”).

Led by the gung-ho Mitch, the team proceeded to beat the everloving shit out of the Genesis girls – killing one of them, in fact. That really set off some major tremors among their group. As the remaining Genesis girls ran off screaming in bloody fear, some of the Survivors tried to find a way to deal with the body, some cried, and the lovely Devon went to go tell YPC what happened.

Devon didn’t get too far, though. Just a short job from the Tree of Death, he saw the genesis girls get surrounded by dark figures which came out of nowhere. They were quickly subdued and taken away. Devon tried to follow, but was shortly surrounded himself by these figures, which he realized were the members of the all-boys Ecclesiastes prayer group. Their eyes were all fucked up and their skin was dark and veiny. They looked pissed. Devon tried to talk them down, but they didn’t liste, and quickly jumped him while he screamed like a girl.

The other Survivors heard the scream and ran to the rescue, and once again Mitch’s boots kicked some ass and helped save the day. The Ecclesiastes managed to get away after a few rounds of cards, but they also took the Genesis girls with them.

The scene ended with them all running off to find YPC. By the end of the scene, half of the Survivors had already descended to the second stage of Madness, and a few had taken wounds. Nice!

Scene 2: Cody’s Cabin

In this short scene, the Survivors met with the always-pleasant Youthpastor Cody in his small office. They tried to convince him that there was violence going down, and that something was wrong with Ecclesiastes and Genesis. He seemed pleasant and unshaken, and assured them that he would contact the nearby sheriff’s station to send Ol’ Jake Hornsby down to check on matters.

I seem to recall there being some joke with one of the characters being nicknamed “Penis” and that being a hilarious moment during the radio chat with Jake Hornsby, but the specifics now escape me. Anyway, this scene primarily served as a segue to the next one, with a bit of situational establishment and intensification of the background conflict.

Scene 3: Stalking the Vestibules

The scene opened with the Survivors in their “vestibule.” Now, Imagine, if you will, a Jesus Compound. Rows and rows upon rows and rows of bunkhouses, veritable streets and alleyways between them, each on cinderblocks and lacking windows, with a lock on the outside of the door. These were the vestibules of YPC’s Jesus Camp, each containing another prayer group.

The characters had been escorted to their vestibule, and shortly afterward a couple of junior Youthpastors showed up, requesting to speak with the girls (Mitch, Missy, and Sadie) separately. The gals were taken off, and a moment later the boys heard the sound of their vestibule being locked from the outside.

A few moments later, there were two major simultaneous conflicts. The Ecclesiastes showed up again, this time far more disturbing than before, and tried to take Mitch and Missy out into the darkness. Meanwhile, Sadie had run back to the vestibule to let the boys out, but was stymied by some creepy monster-looking girl grabbing at her from under the vestibule. Several rounds of cards later, Missy is much further down the depths of lunacy, Mitch is covered in blood, and the rest of them have gathered outside the vestibule to try and help the dying girl underneath it. Turns out, it was one of the escaped girls from the Genesis group, and her belly insides look as if they’ve exploded everywhere.

They made a plan to escape, and the scene ended.

Scene 4: Moonlit Lakeside Romance

Oh my. This truly epic scene involved a dramatic argument while treading water in the middle of the lake, a thrilling motorboat chase, multiple people getting whacked with oars, an attempted drowning suicide, and more. But the best part? Definitely the time when Sadie tried to drown herself, and Zeke rescued her, and tried to turn mouth-to-mouth resuscitation into a hardcore makeout only to be punched in the face by the now-conscious Sadie. Oh no, it was when Bross and Devon admitted their gay love for each other and missed on the beach. Or was it when Mitch called Missy an evil bitch and an insult to women everywhere, and Missy slapped her for it, and then they had violent lustful angsty teenage lesbian dry-humping on the waterfront?

Oh wait, it was all three of them, because they all happened at the same fucking time and provided the perfect end to the scene.

Scene 5: Golem Jesus

In the Grand Finale to the game, they face off against Youthpastor Cody’s grand creation: Golem Jesus. The giant Buddy Christ statue in the middle of the grand pavilion broke apart, and from it stepped a gigantic flesh golem made from the bodies of all the other Jesus Camp attendees.

By this point all of the Survivors were either quite insane or very close, and as such the battle was quite intense. There was head-biting, people-eating, fist-pounding, flying kung-fu dyke combat-boot flying-monkey face-kicking, and more. Missy went nuts and gave birth to a demonic Jesus Spawn, while the belly-less corpses of the Genesis Group tried to strangle everyone with their flailing intestines.

In the end, Golem Jesus killed everyone and stomped off into the sunrise with Baby Demon Jesus perched on his shoulder, although it’s rumored that Sadie might have somehow survived.

Aftermath

Seriously, Fuck Yeah. This game was so awesome that all other games in the room with us were visibly jealous. I think we annoyed a lot of people with our loudness, but sweet golem jesus above, it was worth it. I made some good personal connections with fellow gamers in this session, and look forward to meeting up with them again in the coming days.

The Future

Coming to GameStorm 2010: Jesus Camp Massacree 2 – The Rise of Golem Jesus!

It all got started after the fabulous-amazing Jesus Camp Massacre session of Cannibal Contagion. After leaving the scheduled gaming room, I ran into Nick and Gilbert, and we all three had about an hour to kill. I blurted out “let’s play Quad” without thinking, and a few moments later we had started on in. After a few minutes of deliberation over what number-generator to use – for some reason they were both hardcore against using dice right then – we settled on a deck of cards. The built-in random scenario generator quickly laid out the basics:

• Setting: Ancient Earth (we decided Egypt)
• Location: An Institution (we decided a Temple of Training)
• What starts it all off: A natural disaster (we decided on an Earthquake) kills all the priests in the temple leaving only two survivors

The characters were created quickly enough, each being only a small list of good and bad Merits. One was a fairly inept acolyte conman, the other was a Pariah being beaten for the crimes of heaven or some such. I like to call them Harold and Kumar, as their dynamic was equally hilarious.

Once the core scenario’s conflict was established and the characters introduced, we quickly went to town. Nick and Gilbert were both experienced story-gamers, and thus took to the game’s mechanical concepts quickly. Within a few minutes, the mechanics were in play and more conflicts were introduced. I think for the purposes of the Pick-Up style of game play, the simple mechanics worked very well to move the game quickly along.

The temple guards took both the characters into protective custody, and one of them quickly managed to convince the guards that he was the Chosen One and the other character was his faithful Companion. A series of Sacred Rites of Testing were then undergone, which included eating (and stomaching) terrible foods, surfing the back of alligators while blindfolded, an epic game of Madden BC-199, and more. My favorite of the trials was definitely the game of Five-Card Draw, played with giant stone slab cards carried on the backs of teams of slaves. Each time a card was discarded, the stone was smashed to bits and the slaves carrying it were thrown to the crocodiles.

And there was much death by crocodile in this game. From Nick’s character’s lost arm to the gobs of sacred virgins they fed to them post-coitus, the crocodiles played an unexpectedly crucial part in the session. In fact, at the very end, when Gilbert’s character castrated himself to prove that he was in fact the REAL Chosen One (claiming the title by default, as he prevented Nick from winning), he was then fed to the crocodiles to appease the angry gods.

Within the span of an hour, we had run a pretty damn awesome game session, consisting of at least a dozen hilarious conflicts and a large handful of scenes. For me, the hardest part was actually coming up with the Seven Sacred Rites, but once the game started moving along, those came pretty easily too.

All in all, a damn fantastic session, one which all three of us have laughed about many times since.

First off, I forgot to pick up several things that I wanted: the Yeld whitebook, the Crossroads 2nd edition whitebook, the Spectre of the Beast document, and Dine n Dash.

Second, I didn’t actually get to play anything at all. I ran four games, but was a player in none. I think next year I’ll split my time more evenly. I really badly look forward to this Friday Night’s game, so I can roll some dice and take some names, ryargh!

Finally, I didn’t get to shake Jonathan Tweet’s hand and thank him for creating the wonderful game that is Everway. Ah well, maybe next time!

That’s it, really. It really was an otherwise fabulous weekend.

Okay, now that that’s done with, I’m here to talk about GameStorm 2009, and how it was awesome. I spent the entire recently-past weekend at this local game con – some call it “Portland’s Best Game Con in Vancouver.” This was my third year in a row going, and my first year actually attending for the majority of the weekend.

My initial forecast at the beginning of the weekend: “I’m going to be fucking tired of gaming by the end of Saturday night.” I am plum-tuckered thrilled to state that I was absolutely, horribly wrong in that prediction. When it was all over, I wanted to game even more than I already had. The weekend was fabulous, in every way. I met great folks, played great games, and have some gaming memories to last a lifetime.

Rather than go step-by-step walking through the events of the weekend, I decided that this time, I’d make it a visual piece, a detailed collage of swag and memories.

click for a bigger image

1. First we have the Cannibal Contagion teasers that were printed up for the con. MANY thanks to Kat for the assembly and production of these. Also, MANY thanks to the folks that actually purchased them (and even pre-ordered the game!) at the con.
2. This strip of black with the bolt emblazoned upon it is the special Indie Hurricane armband I acquired on day one. Someone in the GoPlay PDX community made and brought a whole mess of them. Thanks! I wore mine all weekend, and actually intend on cutting out a strip of it and sewing it to my jacket, right above my patch of “The Damned.”
3. I grabbed a copy of a nifty little game called “Lucky Pip & the Incomparable Ithamar Conchie.” It’s a simple narrative story game in which fortune cookies are used to provide solutions to the big challenges of life that face the poor accident-prone Lucky Pip.
4. My Gamestorm badge was quickly adorned with the nifty “Indie Hurricane” ribbon shortly after I acquired my free all-weekend guest registration. I wanted to put my roommate Veira’s badge in the pic too, but couldn’t find it.
5. This is my personal copy of what I like to call “Classroom Explosion.” A year ago I took my copies of Panty Explosion and Classroom Deathmatch and spiral-bound them together in the same volume. I had to loan them to Nick for his own Classroom Deathmatch game this year, and it felt pretty nifty to show them off. I’m still pestering Jake about the idea of revisiting Classroom Deathmatch with a new revised edition I like to call “Season 2.”
6. At GS11, all I brought with me was a water bottle and a single backpack. The latter was filled to near-bursting with books, gaming utensils, clothing, hygiene products, and a big wad of Odwalla bars. These delicious pick-me-ups were lifesavers, especially given the con’s brand-new totalitarian regime governing their hospitality suite. The price of registration increased, while the quality of service measurably plummeted. Shame on you, GameStorm.
7. While I’ve had this box (and many more) of Avatar cards for a while, I met a fellow story-gamer at GS11 who won four full starter boxes of them as prizes. Perhaps some day we shall duel, neh?
8. I finally caved in and bought a whole tin full of the Pirates minis game pieces, by WizKids. My primary purpose is to use some of them as game pieces in my monthly Sea and Shores campaign, but since I know a few locals who play, I’m also looking to have a few rounds o’ broadside combat in the coming weeks.
9. I met a fine gentleman called Ogre, who let me talk for a bit on his podcast. He also linked me to a variety of things, including a forum he said I would probably enjoy called Cultures of Play. One gripe: why why why must is be Vanilla? Ah well, I will be checking it out shortly. Thanks for the long and engaging chatting, Ogre, and for the links! Thanks also to Willem, who led a damn good discussion on integrating Learning and Play.
10. Ah, Jack Daniels – a delicious whiskey and a handy deck of cards. Both are quite useful in games of Cannibal Contagion!
11. The Yellow background actually has nothing to do with GameStorm. It’s a poster that my roommate made when we hosted our first Zombie Survival party. It’s only here for contrast, and because it is hilarious and awesome.
12. This is a flier for a local area community of LARPers who call themselves SHAGLARP. I always love LARPers who allow themselves to expand their interests beyond Vamps and Werewolves, and as such I greatly recommend other similarly-minded gamers to check these folks out. While I didn’t get to play it, I hear they run a game of “Og!” that is to die for, provided your character can remember what “die” means…
13. This art book was acquired when we pre-ordered the Deluxe version of Dead Space for the PS3. it served well as a prop for the first game of Cannibal Contagion run at the con, which was set in the same fictional universe.
14. Here we have four cards from the various Cannibal Contagion games I ran. Yes, that says Golem Jesus, and you should be very, very afraid. Pablo wasn’t, and don’t forget what happened to him…
15. Ah, finally, we come to Quad. I gave away a crapload of the Quad folds, and noticed that even more were picked up without my promotion by passers-by at the con. The best part of the Quad drive, though, was the random and unexpected (and unexpectedly awesome) pick-up game of it that I ran for Nick and Gilbert shortly after my Jesus Camp Massacre session. The number 7 there is a nice reference to that, which only the three of us will ever get.

So there’s my GameStorm in a nutshell. There’s a few bits and pieces missing, but I think that sums it up pretty nicely.

As for the sessions I ran, there were four: Dead Space, Occupant Necrodanger, The Jesus Camp Massacre, and the Quad pick-up game. I intend to post full AP reports on all four of them over the next week or so, provided it doesn’t interfere with the planning for this weekend’s upcoming Sea and Shores session.

As a final bit of hoopla, I sold a good handful of copies of the Cannibal Contagion numbered teasers, but didn’t get the names of the people who purchased three of them. Let me know who you are and what number your teaser is. And thanks, by the way!

The LinkRoll:

• Stabbing Contest Podcast
• Classroom Deathmatch
• Cultures of Play
• Lucky Pip & the Incomparable Ithamar Conchie
• SHAGLARP
• While not mentioned in the picture key, I did chat a bit with Nathan Monger about his games, and wanted to give a shout. he was one of my mid-stage playtesters for Cannibal Contagion. Thanks for helping out, man. Next time we cross paths, show me some of your games.

That’s it for now. Expect the Actual Play reports to come very soon.

- NPC

“[Indie Hurricane] Cannibal Contagion: The Unitologist Gambit”
What: A game of horror, madness, and violent survival. This game is based on the dark futuristic setting of the recent hit video game “Dead Space.” Familiarity with the franchise might be useful, but is not at all necessary, and there will be no spoilers of the events of the actual video game.
When: Friday Evening (6-ish?)

“Fallout: T Minus Ten…”
What: An action-packed romp through the setting of the Fallout games, using the Savage Worlds rules for Fast, Furious Fun.
When: Saturday Afternoon (noon-ish?)

“[Indie Hurricane] Cannibal Contagion: The Jesus Camp Massacre”
What: Your parents sent you away to Youthpastor Cody’s Righteous-Awesome Revival Camp. Now you just have to survive the weekend…
When: Saturday Evening (6-ish?)

“[Indie Hurricane] Classroom Deathmatch”
What: Classroom Deathmatch, by the book.
When: Sunday Evening (6-ish?)

I’ll likely spend most of the rest of the time chilling out at the Indie Hurricane booth, pimping a variety of awesome games to passers-by. Maybe I’ll have some one-buck prints of QUAD and a few ashcans of Cannibal Contagion as well. I’d also be up for facilitating a Cold City game some time if there’s interest, but I don’t plan on scheduling one officially. But who knows – I’m currently starting to read a very much Cold City-inspirational book by Tim Powers, so by the time I’m finished with it I will quite likely be all “OMG I HAVE THE BEST IDEA EVAR” and sign up for another slot.