Atlas Games offers a wide selection of great pastimes for experienced gamers, hobbyists, and families. Our
award-winning products are some of the most respected in the industry.
Dispatches:
News from Atlas Games
Atl@s Updates Returns!
Are you looking for the latest info about upcoming Atlas Games products, but don't have time to check out the Atlas web site? Why not sign up to receive Atl@s Updates, then? Whenever a new book or game is about to ship to distributors, be the first to know ... just send an email to
info@atlas-games.com with "Subscribe Atl@s Updates" in the header and we'll set you up. It's as easy as that!
Blood of the Valiant Off to Press
Yesterday we sent the materials for
Blood of the Valiant to the printer. It should be back as a finished book in about 6-7 weeks.
Sanctuary of Ice Ships This Week
It's a busy week ahead. The big news this week is that tomorrow we will be shipping out
Sanctuary of Ice, the long-awaited hardcover treatment of the Tribunal of the Greater Alps for Ars Magica. This book has had a long and tortured history, waylaid by the comings and goings of various staffers and schedule hassles, but it's here at last and well worth the wait!
Also coming up soon, we will be shipping
Ancestral Vault on October 14th. This book is a D20 sourcebook of African-themed equipment and magic items -- great for
Nyambe: African Adventures, but really a good resource for any d20 game at all.
Playing Catch-Up
The fun but hectic work I got to do on
Dork20 has held up a lot of routine web stuff, so I've tackled
most of that today. I've got emails from some you kind folks to address, such as busted PDF links and embarassing typos on my part. For now, at least, you'll have to settle for new book covers (like
Love & War and
Sacred Ground 2), the
Dork20 temporary page, and the release of three new books. Yes, three.
For those of you, and there were lots, who wrote in about our Spanish edition of
Once Upon A Time, I've made it much easier to identify the Spanish language link on our page. Or, of course, you could just
click here to order that Spanish edition right now. I've emailed a lot of you back, but I thought I'd go public because I also just found at least one person who I missed! (Seriously, I received something in the neighborhood of a dozen emails about the Spanish edition -- all at once!) So I'll be getting to you next. In the meantime, if you didn't know there was a Spanish edition of
Once Upon A Time, now you do. There's also an Italian edition, located on that same page. Great for foreign language teachers.
Gotta run. Still way behind!
How Cool Is This?
So, John and I went to the open house hosted by one of our printers, and they not only fed everyone dinner (with an open bar) and breakfast the next morning, but put us up at a golf resort in a CABIN of our own with a FIREPLACE, PRIVATE DECK, and WHIRLPOOL TUB. Pretty stylin' I must say!
Oh, and we learned bunches of stuff about printing presses and such, too. ;)
Just Passing Through...
This is one of those exhausting days. Up at 5 AM to catch a plane back from Seattle, where Michelle and I had been since Thursday night visiting a bunch of friends and enjoying excursions to such places as the Pike Place Market and the Chateau Ste Michelle winery (along with two other wineries down the same path, while we were in the neighborhood; and we couldn't help stopping at Games Plus in Woodinville, too...). We got back to the Minneapolis airport and headed straight north to the office, since we have had an awful lot to do today.
Crime and Punishment had shown up, so I've spent my day packing orders and making phone calls to distributors. Tomorrow morning I'll be in to take care of just a couple late arrivals...and then we're off out of town again, this time to the workshop being hosted by one of our main printers, a few hours north of the Twin Cities. It should be fun and educational for Michelle and I (Will and Scott had their turn at it last year), and while we're there we'll be checking the proofs of
To Go, the UA mega-campaign that is now in production at the printer.
Burning
The CD writer on Scott's machine is now burning a disc. Boy, it's been a lot of work, but we're really happy with the results...
On this disk are two projects. First is
Once Upon A Time. We're switching production of this game to Carta Mundi's U.S. plant, to save time and hassles in future printings. In the past we've always printed it in Belgium, which had some advantages (combining print runs with our foreign language licensees), but meant the extra costs of transatlantic travel and customs brokerage, and sometimes extra delays. (One time a reprint was held up for 3 months in US customs!) This first time, though, switching production has meant a delay, as we have had to generate new films and other set-up for the U.S. manufacturing. Along the way, the packaging is changing very slightly -- we'll be using a new tuckbox design that will have the three decks side by side in a tray, which slides inside a separate cardboard jacket. I hope this will actually work better for storing the game, compared to the current one-piece box.
The second project is
The Dork20 Deck, which just looks fantastic. It's a really neat game accessory, and it's also just fun to read and look at, with John Kovalic's beloved cartoons as illustrations. Watch our website for more information and previews as we count down to the official release of Dork20 in December!
To Go is Today To Go (to the printer)
John Tynes has turned in the final files for
To Go, the Unknown Armies mega-campaign that will knock your socks off. I've burned a CD-ROM, am checking all the fine print, and expect to have it in the mail to the printer this very afternoon. Printing time on a hardcover like this is likely to be 6-8 weeks, so we're hoping for a late October to early November window for the book to be a finished product in our hands and shipping to distributors.
The Dork20 Deck
A Roleplaying Accessory for the D20 System (v3.5)
Once again your character finds himself lying at the bottom of the Pit of Eternal Doom, waiting for the approaching Turbonium Dragon to munch on his tasty carcass. What do you do?
a) Beg the dragon not to use your bones as toothpicks.
b) Trust the kindly GM to bail you out.
c) Spring "Oh, the Humanity!" on the dragon to keep him from saving against your cause fear spell, and when it flees in fear of your overwhelming buffness, use your handy "Huzzah!" card to take 20 leaping out of the pit!
It must be mine! Atlas Games comes to the rescue with the new D20 System roleplaying accessory illustrated by the inimitable and Award-winning cartoonist John Kovalic. The Dork20 Deck features a rulebook and a deck of 56 full-color cards such as “It could be deadly -- send the thief!”, “The Gem of Obvious Self-Destruction,” and “All Your Dice Are Belong to Us!” Dork20 cards modify the standard D20 rules to allow characters to perform nigh-impossible deeds. The Dork20 Deck gives players the edge that turns their adventures into legend, and their game sessions into more fun than ever before! This December, eat hot automatic bolt action, perfidious beasts!
Suggested Retail Price: $12.95
Stock No. AG3227
ISBN 1-58978-046-9
SHIPPING TO DISTRIBUTORS IN DECEMBER 2003
Dork20 and Penumbra are trademarks of Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games. Dork Tower is a trademark of John Kovalic, used under license. Art Copr. 2003 John Kovalic. Text Copr. 2003 Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games. D20 System is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, used with permission.
[Note: Following is the distributor update that was sent out last night. I figured we'd share the same newsbits with everyone else...]
Atlas Games Distributor Update
Sept. 10, 2003
Crime & Punishment Order Deadline: Sept. 22nd
We have a lot of projects at the printer right now! The first that will be back in our hands is
Crime and Punishment, the eagerly awaited "Campaign Styles" companion to our most popular RPG book this year to date,
Dynasties and Demagogues. Since the expected date of arrival is not even two weeks away, I wanted to give everyone the heads up to know we'll be needing purchase orders.
Speaking of
Dynasties, check out
Dungeon #103, pages 68-69, for some glowing praise of the book and reports of its growing popularity among fans.
Changes to the D20 System Trademark License
As you may have heard, Wizards of the Coast has imposed some changes on the D20 System Trademark License. We are studying the impact of these changes on our Open Game License lines, and considering whether we need to use the D20 logo on future Penumbra products, or whether Penumbra is well enough recognized by retailers and distributors that people will know the game system it works (and where to shelve it in the stores) even without that logo. Any input from you, our customers, would be gratefully received.
Coming in December: Dork 20
We're very excited to announce a new release for December:
The Dork20 Deck. Working with John Kovalic, we are publishing this D20 System rules accessory in the format of a card deck -- a perfect stocking stuffer just in time for Christmas. (It's actually going to be packaged as two half-size decks, side by side, to give us more eye-catching "real estate" for the cover design.) We've been keeping this under our hat for a long time, but it looks like it's really coming together -- after extensive development and playtesting, and with most of the illustrations in hand, the product is almost ready for the printer, in fact. The cards are dealt out to players during the game, who can use them to influence game events.
There are a couple of really exciting things about this product. One is that, on the level of rules and game play, it's a wonderful enhancement to the roleplaying experience. The opportunity to play a
Dork20 card and influence events, in addition to the usual player role of controlling his or her character, gives players more reason to pay attention and be involved, even when their own character isn't the center of attention, or even part of a scene.
The other exciting aspect of these cards is, of course, the familiar and beloved characters of Dork Tower, and the illustrations of John Kovalic. Every card is illustrated in full color, and includes quotes from and references to some of the most memorable and amusing scenes from the Dork Tower comic book over the years.
Once Upon A Time Reprint
The reprint of
Once Upon A Time is in production. We are hoping that finished games will be in our hands before Christmas. In the past, this game has always been printed in Belgium (ganging print runs with foreign language licensees), but with this printing we are switching production to the United States. This should save us money on shipping, and more importantly, it will save a lot of time and unpredictability when it comes to ocean freight and customs clearance. Switching to the USA has meant creating new computer files for the US plant, and it also is necessitating some minor changes to packaging. The new box will be approximately the same dimensions as the old, but it will be two part, with a tray and a sleeve. Price is unchanged. We are discontinuing the display box that has been used in the past -- in our experience, 12 games is more than most individual retailers are comfortable stocking at once, so this extra packaging tends to be wasted and I don't think anyone will miss it.
I do not yet have an estimated arrival date for the reprint, but I am guessing sometime in late November.
Release Schedule Update
Here is a current summary of upcoming products through the end of the year, in addition to the OUAT reprint:
Aug AG0267 Sanctuary of Ice (ArM) HC 29.95 at press - expected early Oct.
Aug AG3223 Crime & Punishment (Penumbra/D20) HC 29.95 at press - expected 9/22
Sep AG3702 Ancestral Vault (Nyambe/D20) 19.95 at press - expected early Oct.
Sep AG6008 To Go (Unknown Armies) HC 29.95 late - should be at press this week
Oct AG1240 Dungeoneer 2nd Ed.: Tomb o/t Lich Lord 19.95 at press
Oct AG1241 Dungeoneer 2nd Ed. POP Disp (5 games) 99.75 at press
Oct AG3225 Sacred Ground 2 (Penumbra/D20) 19.95
Oct AG4010 Blood of the Valiant (Feng Shui) HC 29.95
Nov AG0271 Faerie Stories (Ars Magica) 22.95
Nov AG1242 Dungeoneer: Vault of the Fiends 19.95
Nov AG3226 Love & War (Penumbra/D20) HC 29.95
Dec AG3227 Dork20 (Penumbra/D20 Card Accessory) 12.95
Dork20 Might Go to Press Soon, Possibly
Our big project with artist John Kovalic is progressing nicely ... The Dork20 Deck is a roleplaying accessory for the D20 System that features original art based on John's Dork Tower comics. The cards are designed to be dealt to players during a roleplaying session, to let the players influence the outcome of the game. I'm hoping I'll be able to send it off to press next week, so it'll be out in time for Christmas ... should be a great stocking stuffer!
Product Info | Official Forums | Contact Atlas | Retailer Support
