Science Fiction

Android: Mainframe

Description from the publisher:

Run fast, score big! Android: Mainframe is a fast-paced strategy game set in the not-too-distant future of the Android universe!

In the game, you and up to three opponents are elite cybercriminals known as runners who are competing for control of a vulnerable bank's various accounts. At the beginning of the game, you mark your arrival by the placement of your first access point. Then, each turn, you get to take a single action: establish another access point, execute a program, or pass. Your goal is to use the programs at your disposal to secure your access points so that they control as many of Titan's vulnerable accounts as possible.

Most of the generic programs write pathways between Titan's various nodes, allowing you to place a blue partition between the nodes on the board. Whenever your partitions seal off a section of the board containing only your access point or access points, they are "secured" and flipped face down. They are no longer vulnerable to your opponents' programs, and you will score the accounts they control at the end of the game.

Android: Mainframe differs from its predecessor Bauhaus in a number of ways, such as each player having a hand of cards and the game including six runners who each have five distinctive programs.

RYU

In a galaxy far far away, there is a planetary system composed of a great big sun and nine minor planets, four of which have been developed as mercantile planets more or less under the control of politicians and guilds. On each of these planets are a merchant guild, a guild of smugglers, a bazaar and the galactic government, and players can take special actions on each of these planets.

In RYŪ, a game of negotiation, bluffing and cube-drafting, players each represent one of the other five planets in this star system, with each planet having a different type of humanoid – such as sharks, amazons and meka goblins – and its own unique influences. These planets are open to prospecting, and with the proper financing players will be able to dig the resources they need to build their own RYŪ, a mother ship composed of "Rare Metal", "Memory Stone", and "Amber Magic". Players will need to cooperate with one another to raise the necessary resources, but they must also work for themselves in order to maintain an advantage over other players. Once assembled, the RYŪ comes to life as a living spaceship, and its owner wins the game.

Probable update from game box on publisher website:

Several centuries ago, a celestial Leviathan cried on Titan, our planet. Its tears flooded our cities and our land. The people of the Dragons did their utmost to save as many of us as they could: Goblins, Shibuke, Reptilians, Sharks, and Amazons. The survivors of this deluge were brought to Dala, the highest mountain range of our celestial body, with its 9 majestic summits. Nine summits that soon became nine islands.

Rifter: 46

This issue of The Rifter® is jam-packed with source material for numerous Palladium game settings.

The Rifter® is your doorway to unlimited imagination and numerous Palladium role-playing worlds. It offers new heroes, powers, weapons, magic and adventure for your games. It presents new villains, monsters and danger to battle, and new ideas to consider. And it helps you unlock your imagination by showing you what other gamers, just like you, have created.

Rifts® - dragons in society.
Rifts® - an in-depth and frightening look at Brodkil Sub-Demons.
Dyval/Minion War - "official" source material, including Quick Roll Villain tables.
Wormwood Addenda, Part Three: The City of Worldgate.
Heroes Unlimited - modern magic and four new character types.
After the Bomb & Heroes Unlimited - Weird Mutants!
Chaos Earth - The Way Station, surviving in the Blue Zones.
Beyond the Supernatural - "The Scurry Scree" and the "Scurry Talus", a pair of demonic guardians.
Hawaiian myths and the Kahuna.
Fantasy short story, monsters, magic and more.
News and coming attractions by Kevin Siembieda.
The latest chapter of the Hammer of the ForgeTM - fiction.

Rifter: 53

The Rifter® #53

The Rifter® is your doorway to unlimited imagination and numerous Palladium role-playing worlds. It offers new heroes, powers, weapons, magic and adventure for your games. It presents new villains, monsters and dangers to battle, and new ideas to consider.

The Rifter® #53 includes:
Ravages of Time, by S.E. Gibbons, is an interesting Rifts® article with tips for Game Masters and playing sprawling epic sagas like the Minion War™ and Siege on Tolkeen.
ARCHIE Phase Two, by Damon Sutton. This Rifts article takes a look at more machinations of our favorite mechanized menace, ARCHIE Three™.
On Faerie Folk, by Michael P. Yocom, offers up a menagerie of new Faerie Folk, cousins and animals for the Rifts® and Palladium Fantasy® settings.
Dawn of a New Era, by Corey Livermore, presents an adventure in a setting for Heroes Unlimited™ in which mutants and aliens are being forced to "register" with global governments, or else.
The Lucky Psychic, by Steven Dawes, presents a new Beyond the Supernatural™ psychic who makes his own luck.
A Dark Day™ Short Story, by Jeremy Hutchins, will keep you wondering what's next.
The next chapter of the Hammer of the Forge™.
Plus news and coming attractions.
96 pages.

Rifter: 57

The Rifter® #57

Looking for new ideas and material for your campaign? Then you want The Rifter®. The greatest value of The Rifter® is that every issue offers new and different ideas, and gets your imagination running in directions you might not have considered. It’s an idea factory that will help you generate new ideas of your own, and it also presents valuable source material you can drop right into your games.
The Rifter® is your doorway to unlimited imagination and numerous Palladium role-playing worlds. It offers new monsters, villains, characters, O.C.C.s, powers, magic, weapons, adventure and ideas for your games. It presents new villains, monsters and dangers to battle, and new ideas to consider. Every issue has material for Rifts® and at least two or three other Palladium game lines.

The Rifter #57 is an extravaganza of monsters and mayhem to surprise your players and spice up your games.
Rifts– new weapons and vehicles of the Coalition States.
Beyond the Supernatural– monsters and supernatural threats.
Palladium Fantasy– monsters and dangerous animals galore.
For all game settings– Genie bottles and dimensional pockets.
Rifts– The Brodkil War Machinist.
Rifts– NGR Anthropological Field Operative.
News, coming attractions, and more.
Cover by Charles Walton II.
96 pages.