Welcome to the city of Nightmares. Now you’re Awake.

Evil Hat brings great games to the table, and we have something truly great in store for you in this Kickstarter. We’re proud to introduce Don’t Turn Your Back, a game that brings together the best of everything Evil Hat can deliver.

With a unique combination of deck building and worker placement elements, and a design that creator Eric B. Vogel has called one of his best yet, it offers a fresh and exciting gameplay experience.

Designers & Dragons is a four volume book series of RPG industry awesomeness, meticulously researched and prettily packaged. Author Shannon Appelcline guides you company by company through the history of tabletop starting in the 1970s all the way up to present day. This series is chock full of fascinating insider tidbits, company profiles, and yes—enough drama to fuel a hundred campaigns.

Evil Hat Productions is incredibly proud to produce this updated edition of Designers & Dragons. You may remember the first edition that came out from the lovely people at Mongoose Publishing—we’d wanted to publish it then, but missed the chance! So we leapt at the opportunity to take it on once their one-volume version went out of print.

Race to Adventure! is a fun, family-friendly board game for ages 8 and up that can be played in about half an hour. Fans of pulp will love the brightly-colored world of talking apes and flying jet-men, and busy families can have an evening of fun that doesn’t take over the whole night.

For experienced gamers who love the “role selection” dynamic in board and card games, Race to Adventure! offers a strong introduction to those concepts that your friends will find less intimidating than similar Euro-games, yet still packed with enough complexity and configurability to challenge everyone.

You may have read about my 2011 new releases (which included games, fiction, and non-fiction) or seen the pictures where I showed The Queen of Crows in print.

Well, I’ve had two new releases so far (with a third on the way) and I haven’t really done a good job mentioning what those are. So let me rectify that RIGHT NOW and give you some clues about what’s available for you to either obtain, attain, read, ignore, obsess over or celebrate. (Hah, you get the picture.) There’s a ton more set to debut in third quarter, but until those hit the proverbial digital or physical shelves, can’t say just yet what those are.

Down a lonely alleyway, under a starless sky, lies a city that never was, yet is: the Mad City, where nightmares walk the streets, and a good night’s sleep can get you killed.

Here, then, is a book from that place. Within these recovered pages are the tales of the Awake, insomniacs who’ve walked those perilous streets, bringing a bit of the power of dream with them to fight back the night—always at a terrible cost.

For many, it will not end well. For a few, they might just become heroes—or at least find their way back home.

For you, a choice. Turn away. Don’t read this book. And maybe you’ll continue to rest easy. Or open the cover and enter a world unlike any you’ve ever dared to imagine…

Pre-Order the softcover edition at EvilHat.com today.

So you have this gorilla who wants to rule the world with his army of sentient ape-men, right? Plus, there’s a portal open to another time, and dinosaurs are coming through it – nobody’s sure who’s controlling them, but they aren’t acting purely on instinct. Then there’s the fact that many of the members of the Century Club – a group of two-fisted do-gooders who fight for truth and justice – with Chapter Houses all over the world – have disappeared, and you have the makings of a fantastic romp through pulp action in the classic tradition.

Double 2011 Origins Award Winner Licenses Eisner-Nominated Comic Book

Evil Hat Productions, LLC, today announced an agreement to produce, publish, and distribute a role-playing game based on the Eisner-nominated Atomic Robo comic book. The Atomic Robo RPG will be co-written by Atomic Robo scribe Brian Clevinger and Kerberos Club: Fate Edition author Mike Olson, creator of the Strange Fate version of the Fate engine.

“I’m such a big fan of the world Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener create in every page of Atomic Robo,” said Fred Hicks of Evil Hat. “When I found out they were fans of role-playing games—including Evil Hat’s own Spirit of the Century—it was clear we had a giant-sized opportunity that had to be pursued.”

Daniel Solis’ Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple is a different type of game for me to review. It’s not the kind of game I would pick up on my own. This isn’t to say I am against indie games because, well, I have dozens of examples to the contrary. No, the genre just isn’t that interesting to me and I know my gaming group mostly wouldn’t get behind the concept.

With that said, the book really won me over (can’t make a claim to my gaming group though). There are three key elements to this clever game that make it intriguing and full of potential for gamers and, more importantly, young gamers. We’ll go over those elements (maybe two more) and I’ll show you why this is exactly the kind of game I’d play with my son (he’s seven or, as he’s say, seven and a half).

The idea of a wandering pilgrim is attractive even when laced in an anime dressing (not my thing).

The Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG) by Evil Hat Productions is their adaptation of the FATE 3.0 system to the world created by Jim Butcher in his novels. While not required reading to play the game, a brief overview of the novels will be helpful, as no such summary is included in the game, with that in mind, there are mild spoilers throughout. The novels are chiefly concerned with the cases taken by a private investigator who is also a wizard. He solves various crimes in the city of Chicago that have an occult connection. The writers of the RPG have done an excellent job of using an established intellectual property as a baseline setting and not allowing the characters from the novel to overwhelm the game, a situation that has hurt other settings in the past.

The book itself is a large volume at just over 400 pages. The cover is a full wrap around image depicting Harry Dresden, Karrin Murphy and Michael Carpenter doing battle against a host of supernatural foes. The interior of the book consists of full color pages that are printed to appear as if a coil bound notebook. This appearance is due to the fact that the game is framed in such a way that it appears to be a manuscript of the game written by one of the characters from the series of novels. This stylistic choice is furthered by the inclusion of marginalia written by the “author,” a werewolf named Will, Harry Dresden and Bob, a spirit assistant to Dresden.

Flames Rising is pleased to present you with this exclusive preview from the new The Dresden Files RPG from hobby game publisher Evil Hat Productions.

This new hobby game is based on The Dresden Files series of books by best-selling author Jim Butcher; the game’s setting and characters cover the first twelve books in the series along with some additionally published material. The Dresden Files RPG employs the Fate game mechanic, which was also used in The Spirit of the Century RPG and is offered in two volumes. Volume One, which is entitled Your Story, was designed around building the character that you want to play. Volume Two, which was dubbed Our World, offers you an extensive look into the creatures and characters within this setting.

***Spoiler Alert*** In this preview, the publisher offers us an inside look at Jenny Greenteeth. This character was in a short story entitled Something Borrowed, which was released in a short story anthology entitled My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding.***End Spoiler Alert***

For more information on how to order the e-book or the print edition of The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story and Our World, be sure to scroll down to the end of this post.

After 4 years in the making, Evil Hat Productions is not only pleased but proud to officially announce The Dresden Files Role Playing Game (RPG) will release at the Origins Game Fair, June 23, 2010.

Fred Hicks, one of the founding partners of Evil Hat, said, “Stars and stones! This project has been a labor of love for a great many people for a few years now. The thought of sharing these books with people, getting them in their hands, and having people role playing in the Dresden-verse is making me all misty.”

The Dresden Files RPG is based upon the wildly popular series of books by New York Times best selling author Jim Butcher. With eleven books published in the series, and Changes, the 12th book set to release on April 6, 2010, the Evil Hat crew had a wealth of characters and plot to draw from.

The coming of the Shroud changed the landscape of the once-frozen North utterly—and called the dead forth from their graves. But its most subtle of changes was perhaps its most profound. Babes born after the Shroud came developed odd appearances, evincing milky skin, pale eyes, and strange auras in even the mildest of transformations. That would have been strange enough, but it soon became clear that more than just appearances had changed for these so-called shroudborn. They became creatures half a step outside of our own world, attuned to the call of the spirit-world, and at times living lives more in tune with that realm than our own.

Shroudborn Multiclass is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

This PDF is described by its author as a “World Seed,” a small idea that has no home in ay particular world that you can pick up and drop into the fertile soil of your own game world. You can nurture it and watch it grow in to hours of adventures, exploration and heroism. This is an excellent idea, as most market research has shown that the majority of D&D games that are being played right now are not set in Eberron or The Forgotten Realms but rather in Steve’s World, Jimmy’s Land or some other Random Homebrew Campaign Name Here.

Review by Vincent R. Venturella

The Apelord is the first effort of new company ‘One Bad Egg’ and one of the first ‘proper’ 4th Edition D&D products to grace the virtual bookshelves. The Apelord is a new character race, with all the attendant options, but is also comes packaged with some monster ideas, numerous special abilities and a few adventure ideas. In short, it’s like an extended Monster Manual entry, such as were starting to become the norm at the end of 3.5.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

This is a supplement to the role playing game created by Evil Hat called Don’t Rest Your Head. It is a game that has more than a few horror aspects to it. If you are unfamiliar with the game you can read a review of it -here-.

WARNING! This is an adult game and this supplement is a VERY adult book. If you decide to check it out someday you should know that. Adult language and adult themes are prevalent in this book. If you are easily offended or squeamish, it may not be the right one for you. Just felt like I should warn you.

We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

Earlier this summer we posted two previews of the new Don’t Rest Your Head supplement called Don’t Lose Your Mind, the first one was A is for Ants and we followed that with J is for Jungle, if that doesn’t get you hooked on this book I don’t know what will… Well, I got the […]

Only the brave men and women of The Century Club stand between villainy and humanity, and they’re not going down without a fight.

‘‘Spirit of the Century: A Pulp Pickup Roleplaying Game’’ by Evil Hat Productions is a fast-paced, character-driven RPG that seeks to capture the feel of the old, over-the-top dime-store novels where the pulp genre first flourished.

Characters can range from machine-gun wielding dilettantes to two-fisted mystery men to brilliant (or mad) scientists or spiritual seekers of truth.

Review by Michael Erb

J is for Jungle

A few weeks ago we brought you a preview of Don’t Lose Your Mind called A is for Ants. Now the folks at Evil Hat Productions have offered up a second look at this new book.

From author Benjamin Baugh (Monsters & Other Childish Things) comes Don’t Lose Your Mind, a Don’t Rest Your Head supplement that explores the darkest depths of Madness for your game.

Download the preview pdf: Don’t Lose Your Mind Preview “J”

Ennies voting is live!

In order for indie and small/micro press games to have a chance and a voice at the Ennies, we need every single one of you reading this to get on over there and vote. Please participate! Earlier is better, of course, but you have a week. And please don’t try to vote multiple times. We’d rather have your honest support!

Here’s the “indie-focused” ballot, as posted on the Summer Revolution last week. Show your support! Become a hero of the Revolution!

A pair of government agents stalk a runaway girl armed only with a teddy bear. They are never heard from again. A psychopathic hero wields every blade that ever murdered, carving off pieces of his personality in an effort to beat back the Nightmares. A temptress lures the cruel and vile to assault her—only to trap them in a prison built from her own ribcage. Trailing ash and burning footprints with every step, a man cursed with Orpheus’ gift delves deeper into Hell each day on a quest to find the last missing puzzle-piece needed to rebuild his late girlfriend from the wreck she has become…