Science Fiction

Study Parameters
The mind really can shape reality! Scientists have invented a machine that can tap into a person’s dreams and make them real. However, only the strongest minds--those who can control their dreaming--are able to utilize the machine. Thus Project Dreamscape was created to find the ultimate dreamer.

Study Goal
Participants will collect dream cards on their turns with the goal of chaining matching dream types together. The more dream cards a participant chains together, the more points that chain will score. The participant with the most points at the end of the game is the winner!

There are 8 dream types in the 52-card sleep deck, each of which appears exactly 13 times. Each dream card depicts 2 different dream types. Whenever you collect a dream card, you must choose one of the dream types to perform and follow its directions.

In the near future of Paradox, a space-time disturbance called The Quake is fracturing entire worlds’ timelines and removing these worlds from existence. Two to four players take on the roles of scientists working quickly to repair these worlds’ connections to their past, present, and future by making new time strands — however, every repaired connection ripples through time and fuels the Quake to fracture more worlds. When the storm’s power fades, the most successful scientist will be hailed as a hero throughout the multiverse.

Paradox takes familiar board game elements such as card drafting, set collection, and resource management, then adds a Bejewelled-like grid of colorful disks for each player to manipulate, along with a universe of worlds that must be protected by game’s end. As a result, Paradox presents players with a unique experience that is simple to learn yet challenging to master as players navigate three interlocking systems to protect these worlds from the chaotic forces of the Quake.

Paradox is designed by Brian Suhre and is illustrated by 15 artists, each with their unique view of one of the worlds. Paradox plays in about 20-30min per player.

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.

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.

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.