Midnight Hunt Pre-release

 We will host the Midnight Hunt pre-releease Sept. 17, 18 and 19.  We will have a 5:30 pre-release event on Friday the 17th, a 12:30 pre-release on Saturday the 18th and a 2 headed Giant at 12:30 on Sunday the 19. $25 for any one of them or $20 each for 4 or more. Pre-ament is due by Sept 12th.

Temple Of Elemental Evil

 Goodman Games just announced that the long awaited Original Adventures Reincarnated edition of the Temple of Elemental Evil has finally arrived from China. This edition costs twice as much as the other Original Adventures Remastered as it comes in a two-volume slipcase. It consists of a high quality reprinting of the original 1st edition Village of Hommlet and Temple of Elemental Evil in one volume and the same material updated for 5th edition in the other volume

Masks

 Just a reminder that we are complying with the state, and likely city mandates, regarding masks starting tomorrow. Just of 12% of Jackson County has been infected since this started and we would like to keep it that way. There are indications the trend is starting to flatten and we would like to help it continue that way. We do have disposable masks if you need one.

IDW Boardgames Closed

According to a careful reading of the 2nd quarter report for 2021 from IDW, the company appears to have closed up its boardgaming division 

The quarter’s loss was primarily attributable to non-routine factors including a write-down of capitalized expenses related to tabletops games, a line of business from which IDWP has exited,

Thanks to Boardgamegeek for pointing the above out

This, coupled with the cancellation of a number of IDW boardgames in the works, indicates the company will focus on the publication of comics and graphic novels for the forseeable future.

Masks

 In line with the new state mandate going into effect on Monday, we will be asking that everyone coming into the store or playing here wear a mask. We do have disposable masks available if you forget your's but please try to remember them. 

Carbondale City Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss implementing a city mask mandate as well. however, that does not mean you will need to wear two masks when coming in, one will suffice.

DC Delays

For you DC comic fans, the publisher has announced that about 3 dozen releases will be delayed

Static: Season One #3 now in stores 8/31/2021

Green Lantern 2021 Annual now in stores 9/7/2021

Suicide Squad 2021 Annual now in stores 9/7/2021

Blue & Gold #2 now in stores 9/7/2021

Superman: Son of Kal-El #3 now in stores 9/14/2021

Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Two #4 now in stores 9/14/21

Justice League #67 now in stores 9/14/2021

Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Two #4 now in stores 9/21/21

Batman the Detective #5 now in stores 9/21/21

Hardware: Season One #2 now in stores 9/21/21

Superman Son of Kal-El #3 now in stores 9/21/21

Locke & Key / The Sandman Universe: Hell & Gone #2 now in stores 9/28/21

Blue & Gold #3 now in stores 9/28/21

Deathstroke by Christopher Priest Omnibus now in stores 10/5/2021

Static: Season One #4 now in stores 10/12/21

Teen Titans Academy #7 now in stores 10/12/21

Wonder Girl #4 now in stores 10/12/21

Batman/Catwoman #8 now in stores 10/19/21

Batman: The Long Halloween Special #1 now in stores 10/19/21

Nubia & the Amazons #1 now in stores 10/19/21

Teen Titans Academy #8 now in stores 11/2/2021

Superman '78 #3 now in stores 11/2/21

Suicide Squad: Get Joker! #3 now in stores 11/2/21

Batman: Reptilian #5 now in stores 11/2/21 

Wonder Girl #5 now in stores 11/9/21

Justice League Dark: The New 52 Omnibus now in stores 11/9/2021

Static: Season One #5 now in stores 11/16/21

Wonder Girl #6 now in stores 11/23/21

Superman and the Authority now in stores 11/30/21

Wonder Girl #7 now in stores 12/7/21

The Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Becoming now in stores 12/7/21

Static: Season One #6 now in stores 12/21/21

The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 2 now in stores 1/11/22

Batman: No Man's Land Omnibus Vol. 1 now in stores 1/11/22

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (Tabloid Edition) now in stores 2/15/22

Kill Team

 Updated Kill Team materials arrived today for release on Saturday. we have 3 copies of the boxed set remaining, 1 of the updated rule book and 2 of the compendium.

Free RPG Day

 The store will participate in Free RPG day on October 16. You can click here for a list of items available. You will be able to get one for coming in, one if you have a Preferred customer card and one for each 2 stamps you earn on your Castle Card.

Magic Draft

 have had a few people asking for Magic Drafts. We will be glad to host them but need to know what a good time would be. Saturday afternoons and Tuesday evenings are currently available as are Weekday afternoons.  Please let us know.

Magic 2022

 Here's a link to the Twich stream about what is coming out in 2021-2022 for Magic. Apparently Kamigawa gets pushed 2000 years into the future and gets a cyberpunk skin. Amso Magic/Fortnite Secret Lair

Evolving Skies

 We did receive Evolving Skies boosters, booster boxes, a few Elite Trainer kits and about a dozen of the special 3 booster pack bundles today. Not currently applying trade credit to any of them but you can use Castle Cards on them.

Evolving Skies

 As with everything else this year, it turns out that our Evolving Skiers will arrive last. We should get some product in tomorrow, primarily boosters and build and battle boxes but no Elite Trainer Kits until later in the week.

Bulk Pokemon

If you have bulk Pokenon of the following five types-electric, fire, dragon, steel and fairy-, we are looking to acquire some. We will offer $5 in store credit for each 1000 count box, either assorted or single, of those types and will take assorted boxes of commons, uncommons and rares. We are not currently looking for fighting, water, or grass Pokemon or bulk energy cards.

Bits and Mortar

 

For those not familiar with it, Bits and Mortar is a program set up by almost 20 (at last count) RPG publishers including Cubicle 7 (publisher of Victoriana and Dr. Who), Evil Hat (Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files), Pelgrane Press (Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu and Mutant City Blues) allowing retailers to send a free PDF of any paper RPG from a participating publisher.  The store sells the hard copy, gets the customer’s email and can immediately send them a PDF.  We’ve sold a number of Evil Hat products as a result of this program.  Ideally, we’d see heavy sellers of PDFs such as Steve Jackson Games and Pazio Publishing join the program.  I have spoken to some people at SJG, notably Jackson himself and he seemed interested, saying he would look into in.  Pazio seemed less so, likely because Pathfinder PDFs are a steady revenue stream for them.

Haunted Carbondale

 Just updated the Haunted Carbondale page with some more information about booking a private walking tour. We will have our regular Friday and Saturday night tours on most nights during October but you do have the option of going out on a different night or even afternoon.

Mystery Boosters Convention Edition

 These release on August 20 and will contain over 1670 Magic cards reprinted from earlier sets and 121 new cards tested by WOTC R&D, making this the larges "set" of cards ever released for Magic. Booster boxes are currently selling for between $275 and $350 online, though I see one seller has priced theirs originally at $1100 per box.

Four Trends that Impacted the Game Industry over the Past Few Decades

 

. Oh how times have changed and this seems a good time to look back at 4 trends that shape the game industry today (there are certainly more but four is a nice round number):

1)      The shift of RPGs from print to PDF—As have mentioned in previous columns, we started off dealing RPGs and miniatures. While there were many companies dealing in RPGs (see Shannon Applecline’s Designers and Dragons for a overview), TSR and AD&D dominated the field and with no crowdfunding, no desktop publishing and no PDFs, a company had to have a lot of faith in their product to launch one. In most game stores, the RPG section dominated, unless their focus was historics, either miniatures or boardgames. Today, due to the aforementioned crowdfunding, desktop publishing and PDFs, the overwhelming majority of RPGS reside on computers or the Internet, with most stores only stocking Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder with maybe a few local favorites.

2)      The shift of historics from stores to mailorder—When we opened, every game store worth its salt had an Osprey book spinner rack and likely also a selection of historic miniatures, as well as some shelf space devoted to Avalon Hill, Victory Games and SPI wargames. Today, Osprey racks are scarce as hen’s teeth, historic boardgames are limited to Memoir ’44 and Axis and Allies and, should you find historic miniatures in a store, they likely consist of Flames of War, Sails of War and Wings of War. Most historic boardgames and miniatures sell at wargaming conventions or over the Internet.

3)      The rise of the trading card game—Ah yes, Magic the Gathering and all its offspring. When the Alpha set of Magic released, my distributor could not explain the concept to me so we bought 1 deck and 2 boosters, which sat on the shelf until players came back raving about this new game they found at GenCon. The industry adopted the TCG and never looked back, with, I would estimate, 95% of all game stores stocking at least some Magic, if no other TCG.

4)      The (concurrent) rise of the boardgame—As I noted earlier, most game stores, when we started, focused on RPGS. If they carried boardgames, they stocked historic ones. No long, the last years have seen the rise of the Eurogame, led by Mayfair Games and Settlers of Catan (now just Catan). While playing boardgames in the US still does not have the cachet of those produced in Europe, witness the number of boardgames imported from Europe each year, sales and importance of them to most game stores supplanted the RPG in the product mix of most existing stores and fit as a major component of the business plan of most new game stores (that don’t focus on TCGs).

Three Cheers for Shadowrun

 

Though , Dungeons & Dragons and to a lesser extent today, the Pathfinder RPG get all the attention, there are a number of second tier RPGs that quietly sell, day in and day out.  At our store, that’s Shadowrun.  Released back in 1989, we’ve carried it since before the store opened, when we used to do conventions and mail order only.  One of the few times I remember seeing a crowd of gamers running  was at GENCON in 1992, when the release of the 2^nd edition of the Shadowrun rules was released. FASA announced only a limited number of copies available at the show. For some reason, I was in the exhibit hall when the doors opened and watched as a couple of hundred excited games ran through the aisles towards the FASA booth, hoping to score a copy of the 2^nd edition rules.  The only other time I have seen that much excitement over a game release was when TSR finally released the Temple Of Elemental Evil  back in 1985.

Since then , Shadowrun has sold steadily for us, to the point we try to keep 2 to 4 copies of the core rulebook on the shelf at any one time. The only other RPGS in the store that get stocked to that depth  are Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder RPG.  In fact, because of sales, Shadowrun and Pathfinder are the only two RPGs that we stock all of their hardback sourcebooks 2 to 3 deep at all times.  Even Dungeons & Dragons (4^th edition anyhow) doesn’t get stocked that deeply (mainly because there are a lot more hardbacks for D&D than for either Pathfinder or Shadowrun).  Looking at the shelf at the moment, we have nine Shadowrun hardbacks in stock  and another 9 or 10 paperbound books.  They sell.  Week in and week out, they sell for us and justify the shelf space and inventory.  We average sales of 3 to 5 of each new sourcebook when they hit the shelves (campaign settings and adventures not nearly so well) and have to restock two to three assorted hardbacks weekly, so this is a line that really gets hurt in our store when a book goes out of print, as happens way too often with the line.  Looking at our records, we have sold 6 copies of the rulebook since the beginning of the year and this is of an edition that cam out almost three years ago.

RIP Steve Perrin

 

I was sorry to hear of the passing of Steve Perrin this past Thursday. As was fitting, most of the game industry learned of it through the obituary Chaosium Inc. posted on its website, as that is the company most associated with his work. Also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Perrin brought his first games, the boardgame White Bear & Red Moon and the RPG RuneQuest, to Chaosium, which published them in ’76 and ’78. Although Perrin only remained employed by Chaosium for a few years, his work is inextricably linked with the company as he developed or contributed to the RPGS,  Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder , SuperWorld, Elfquest and many others, over 125 at least. If you played an RPG during the 1980s, chances are it was influenced by his work. Over the next 30 years, he worked in both the tabletop and computer gaming industry, recently returning to Chaosium as a creative consultant. Saying goodbye is never easy but the world is better for having had Steve Perrin in it.

 

Free Comic Book Day

 Come in and get two free comics from the selection offered. Want more comics?

Come in costume and get 1 comic
Wear a Castle Perilous T shirt and get one comic
Show your preferred customer card and get one comic
Get one comic for each stamp earned on your Castle Card that day
Be a Pullbox comic subscriber or sign up for the service with us that day and get one comic.
For each $10 spent with our guests, get 1 free comic
Buy $50 worth of bagged and boarded comics and take 10% off. Buy $200 worth of bagged and boarded comics and take 20% off .
Author Brian K. Morris will sell and sign copies of his work from 10 am. to 2 p.m.

Host of the YouTube Channel "Uncle Jerk's Comic Shop", Robert Rathert, will discuss comics with you from Noon to whenever he needs to leave.
Local Cosplayer Marz Stardust will appear from Noon to 3 for photos. Be sure to ask before taking photos and no touching.
If you do not want to come in the store that day, due to COVID concerns, call or message us with how many books you would like (2 per person) and if they are for kids, adults or both and when you would like to pick them up. We will gladly bring them to the parking lot for you.

Pokemon Evolving Skies pre-release

We will have an At Home pre-release for Evolving Skies this Weekend. Players ma get up to 4 kits per person. EAch kit costs $25 and comes with three additional booster packs of Evolving Skies

Yu Gi Oh Release Date Changes

 Yu-G-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME Legendary Duelists: Syncro Storm

The release date has been moved from 01/14/2022 to 10/29/21

 

      -     Yu-G-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME Burst of Destiny

The release date has been moved from 10/22/2021 to 11/05/21

 

-     Yu-G-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME I:P Masquerena Accessories

The release date has been moved from 11/05/2022 to 11/19/21

 

      -     Yu-G-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME Brothers of Legend

The release date has been moved from 10/01/2021 to 12/03/21

 

      -     Yu-G-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME The Grand Creators

The release date has been moved from 12/03/2021 to 01/14/22

Midweek Magic

 Just a reminder that Friday Night Magic Arena no long exists. Instead there is Midweek Magic. Just send  us a screenshot of your game and we will send you the promo code.

Free Comic Book Day

 August 14th 

Come in and get two free comics from the selection offered. Want more comics?

Come in costume and get 1 comic

Show your preferred customer card and get one comic

Get one comic for each stamp earned on your Castle Card that day

Be a Pullbox comic subscriber or sign up for the service with us that day and get one comic.

For each $10 spent with our guests, get 1 free comic

Buy $50 worth of bagged and boarded comics and take 10% off. Buy $200 worth of bagged and boarded comics and take 20% off .

Author Brian K. Morris will sell and sign copies of his work from 10 am. to 2 p.m.

S&S Collectibles will have an assortment of action figures for sale from 1 p.m to 4 p.m.

Host of the YouTube Channel "Uncle Jerk's Comic Shop", Robert Rathert, will discuss comics with you from Noon to whenever he needs to leave.

Local Cosplayer Marz Stardust will appear from Noon to 3 for photos. Be sure to ask before taking photos and no touching.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and Pokemon

 Adventures int he Forgotten Realms draft booster boxes, which we have had a number of people looking for, as well as new Pokemon boxes sets included a limited number of Marnie Previum Tournament Collection sets are in stock now.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Boxes

 Well, we thought we were going to receive draft booster boxes of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms today but looks like they will arrive Thursday. Generally we get our shipments by about 2 p.m.

Gloom Card Game

 Just got an email from Atlas Games, publisher of Gloom, that the company will be increasing the price as of the first of September. If you are wanting to get a copy of the core game or any of the supplments, now would be the time to buy them.

Masks

 We are do not currently plan to require masks of people in the store. We do ask that, if you are not vaccinated, you do wear one in order to reduce the possibility of you maybe transmitting the virus. We also ask that if you are playing in back and are in a group with kids who cannot get vaccinated yet, that you wear a mask with them.