Dominion Games is about six weeks from publishing the first of a four volume fantasy game system. They are looking for writers, artist, playtesters, sculptors and anyone else who can help with their massive undertaking. You can contact them at www.dominiongamecrafts. com

Shattered Isles PBM/PBeM is looking for playtesters, MindShift Design, a new Scottish gaming company, will be looking for beta testers of their new Play By Mail/ Play By eMail fantasy game "Shattered Isles": Set in the broken work of Suergan, after the WildShattering, an event of cataclysmic magical proportions, each player takes control of a group of adventures that explore and open up their own half-sunken world. You can contact them at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MindShift.

Interplay & BioWare feature new game engine in upcoming Baldur's Gate. The upcoming release of Baldur's Gate will feature a new game engine developed by BioWare Corp. called the Infinity BioWare Engine (IBE). This engine was produced to create a new look for computer role playing games particularly Baldur's Gate. The IBE uses fully rendered background images (instead of tiling) and will support to 24 bit color for useres with hefty 4meg video cards. The IBE also allows for many visual effects in the game including special lighting effects. Characters and monsters in the game will be represented as sprites rather than rendered polygons allowing more detailed images. "The IBE enables us to create worlds beyond the scope of any previous computer RPG's," said Chris Parker, Producer of Baldur's Gate. "It allows the luxury of immersive sound and music, complete control over a dynamic world and its inhabitants and bring everything to life." Baldur's Gate will be released early next year.

Wizards of The Coast Acquires Five Rings Publishing Group Inc.

June 26, 1997 (Renton, WA.)--Wizard of the Coast Inc. today announced that it has completed an agreement to acquire the Bellevue, WA-based Five Rings Publishing Group Inc. Both companies are privately held and financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Five Rings Publishing Group, founded in 1996, is the creaore and publisher of the Legend of the Five Rings trading card game and the producer of the Star Trek: The Next Generation collectable dice game. It is also the publsiher of the soon-to-be-released Dune: Eye of the Storm trading card game.

Peter Adkison, president and CEO of Wizards of the Coast, noted, "Five Rings Publishing is a young dynamic company that has created an impressive model for producing high-quality games over a short period of time. The company excels at combining strong property licenses with superb game play, and its expertise in the adventure game category greatly complements Wizards of the Coast's line of products. "

Robert M. Abramovitz, CEO of Five Rings Publishing Group added, "Five Rings Publishing and Wizards of the Coast both practice a corporate philosphy focused on interacting closely with consumers through demostrations, tournaments and active correspondence. The opportunity to combine the unique talents of the two companies will allow our products to continue to stand out in the marketplace. "

Wizards of the Coast is a privately held game company that publishes the world's bestselling trading card game Magic: The Gathering TCG. Headquartered outside of Seattle, WA., in the city of Renton, Wizards of the Coast is the leading authority on card games and adventure board games, with top-selling titles as the BattleTech tradind card game and the new Corporate Shuffle card game, which is based on the internationally famous DILBERT cartoon character. Wizards of the Coast has international offices in Antwerp, Paris and London.

Wizards of the Coast, Magic:The Gathering and Corporate Shuffle are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast Inc. Legend of the Five Rings, Star Trek: The Next generation collectable dice game and Dune: Eye of the Storm are trademarks of Five Rings Publishing Group, Inc. Star Trek is a registered tradetnark of Paramount Picture. Dune is a registered trademark of MCA/Universal Merchandising Inc. Battle Tech is a registered trademark of FASA Corporation. The Battle Tech universe is owned by FASA Corporation and used under license. DLBERT - United Feature Syndicate Inc. - 1997 Wizards of the Coast Inc.

Voyager Entertainment Inc. Announces the release of Star Blazers Fleet Battle System Miniature Game

Voyage Entertainment Inc. and Mushashi Enterprises Inc. are proud to announce the upcoming release of the Star Blazers Fleet Battle System, a miniatures based space combat simulation game. The game is based on the popular science fiction animation series produced in Japan as Space Battleship Yamato, broadcast on American television and released on video as Star Blazers.

The game system will be released in a modular format which follows the chronological order of the original television series and the release of the five Space Battleship Yamato feature films. The first game moduld to be released will cover the first two television series involving the space wars between Earth and Gamilon and White Comet Empires. A line of 15 highly detailed miniature space ships, cast in pewter, have been produced for the first game module. More are being added and will be available soon.

Australian Realms Cancelled

In a letter dated May 30, 1997, Nick Leaning, Editor of Australian Realms magazine, announced that Australian Realms magazine has closed its doors. The last issue was #30. Below is the text from Mr. Leaning's letter.

May 30, 1997

We regret to advise that an ongoing downturn in advertising and unit sales has forced the closure of Australian Realms magazine, The last edition was released in November 1996. With your generous support Australian Realsm survived five turbulent years in the tough adventure gaming market. Through those years the Australian Realms staff (all volunteers) and our freelance contributors all worked very hard, made many personal sacrifices and explored every reasonable avenue to make our dream of an independent Australian roleplaying magazine come true. Sadly the reality of falling revenue right across the RPG industry made this increasingly difficult over the past two years.

The decision to close Australian Realms was not taken lightly. We know it will come as a great disappointment to our many loyal readers. Australian Realms proved that Australian RPG designers, writers and artists are the equal of any in the world. The magazine gained international recognition in its own right and on behalf of many of the Australian talents we showcased. By any artistic criteria the magazine was a great success that we can all be proud of.

Australian Realms still has an active product list (The Adventure of the A-Team Annual, 25mm A-Team Miniatures and Wair-Rae: Unae Book 1) and ther are many further offerings in the not too distant future (Unae and SolSpace as well as other projects). And if there is a significant improvement in the roleplaying market, we may well resurrect the magazine.

New PRG: Multi-Tech

Now available for The-Game-Pit is a new innovative role playing system, MultiTech. It's easy to learn, fast to play, and inexpensive to own. (See below)

The plot: The Basic Rules allow creation of characters and development of play using a range of technological-Districts (where different areas of the same game world have different tech-cultures). The Scernarios available offer adventures on the planet Valyance, home of multi-tech society (with 4 types of districts including medieval, modern and futuristic environments).

The rules: Multi-Tech uses a percent-based skill system and simple character creation that permits endless possibilities of PC development. Eight basic Character Classes, tons of skills and hundreds of equipment items are detailed in the 63 page Rule Book.

Interested in this new and different game system? Or just want to know more? Check out the web site of the author at www.concentric.net/~valyance/. Their snail mail address is The Game Pit, P.O. Box 133 Northampton, MA 01060

AEon: It is 'a coming'

"AEon, the new science-fiction game that takes a bold, new departure from the World of Darkness is completely on schedule for its November release date. To help reward early buyers and players of this hot new game, the 1st printing, will be printed with a speciality designed, durable, wrap-around plastic cover. This book will be clearly marked on the back cover that it is indeed a 'special limited edition cover', so consumers will be able to easily tell that there is no interior difference between that book and the second printing. The second printing will be hardcover. Both books, however, will be spiral bound to add that extra-special, zero-gravity feel to it.

"The Never-Ending White Wolf Merchandise Story"

The House of Card: The Werewolf: The Wild West Poker Deck and the Mage Tarot Deck are offically discontinued. Roll dem Bone: In honor of the clan pins, are just about done and should be out by the end of the year.

Mage Dice, which was scheduled to be shipped in November will more than likely be about three to four weeks late. Vampire: The Dark Ages Dice, scheduled to ship eons ago, will also be delayed about three to four weeks.

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