Adepticon Report

I had a great time down at Adepticon last weekend. I drove down on Saturday morning and reported in to the Black Library‘s sales manager Vince Rospond, who staffed the booth in the dealer’s room. After about a half hour, Vince pointed out where my longtime friend Jervis Johnson was wandering the gaming hall and sent me off to chat with him.

Jervis designed Blood Bowl, and we worked together on the Space Hulk supplements Deathwing and Genestealer, along with Richard Halliwell and Bill King–a true dream team. We caught up for about an hour before I got a call from my pal Keith Strohm, who was waiting for me in the hotel lobby. Keith and I grabbed lunch at a nearby place called Big Bowl and chatted for an hour and a half until I realized I really should get back to the booth.

Once ensconced in the booth I went about the business of helping Vince sell my books. While we managed that, a couple of long-time fans–Sean and Hobie–hunted me down, along with my old friend from my ICE days, Tim Schmidt. Besides the various Blood Bowl novels, I signed a limited-edition, leatherbound Deadlands–and the rulebooks for Deathwing and Genestealer, which I’d never done before.

I wandered around the gaming halls a bit, which included a trek to an outdoor wedding tent, which house the “Fantasy Pavilion.” I even bumped into Alex Fennell of Mongoose Publishing, playing his hot-pink 40K forces.

After the dealer’s hall closed, I grabbed dinner with Vince and Jervis–and any other GW employee who wandered by the hotel restaurant, including many of the staff of the Chicago Battle Bunker. As an unexpected pleasure, Jon Gillard, GW’s head of licensing, also joined us, and we had a chance to catch up as the evening wound down.

I made my good-byes around 10:30 and drove home, reaching my bed just after midnight. I had a wonderful time at the show. It’s always good to see friends and to soak up the excitement of hundreds of hardcore gamers doing what they love.

An Official Computer Game Credit

Although I worked for a couple years at Human Head Studios and served as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group as we developed a Deadlands computer game (that never quite made it), I’ve yet to have my name in the credits of a published computer game. It’s the nature of such things. I have friends who spent years of their lives working on computer games that never shipped.

For me, that changes on May 1 with the US release of ArmA: Combat Operations. The spiritual sequel to the smash hit Operation Flashpoint, ArmA: Combat Operations takes modern combat simulations to its highest level yet. I can’t wait to play it, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too.
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I wrote the script for the voiceovers that play during the cutscenes before each mission begins, and I had a ball doing it. Best of all, I had the chance to work with my old friend Henrik Strandberg, formerly of Target Games fame. Henrik and I spent many years in the early ’90s working on games like Mutant Chronices, Warzone, and Doomtrooper. Now he’s a top producer with Atari, which publishes ArmA: Combat Operations among many other excellent games.

At the same time, I’m working on the novelization of the Mutant Chronicles film. Funny how it all seems to come full circle while still pressing on into new frontiers.

Adepticon this Saturday

This Saturday, I’ll be at Adepticon down in Schaumburg, Illinois. I don’t know my exact plans yet, but I suspect I’ll end up signing some books and taking part in a seminar or two. If you’re in the area, please stop on by and say hi!

Rest In Peace, David Honigsberg

My pal Aaron Rosenberg reported today that David Honigsberg died this morning. I hadn’t seen David for years, but I commissioned his first professional RPG work from him many years ago, for the Cybertronic supplement for the Mutant Chronicles RPG. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a convention a few years after that, but our paths didn’t cross often enough.

Still, I kept track of David over the years. He was a man of a stunning variety of talents. Besides being an excellent writer, he was a guitarist and composer, both solo and with the Don’t Quit Your Day Job Players. To top it all off, he was a rabbi too. He handled the honors at Aaron’s wedding and at the naming ceremonies of Aaron’s two kids.

David had a heart attack six months ago and seemed to be recovering from it well, as you can see from his blog post about the subject, dated just six days ago. He was only 48. He leaves behind his loving wife Alexandra and a gaping hole in the world.

Farewell, David. We’ll miss you.

The Hobby Games 100

Here’s something else I’ve contributed to: Hobby Games: The 100 Best. This anthology, due out this summer from Green Ronin, features essays from scores of top game designers and writers on their favorite tabletop (or hobby) games.

See the full press release after the break.
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Deceptively Quiet

If it seems quiet around here, it’s because it’s anything but that in my house. I’m in the final throes of writing The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating Dungeons & Dragons Characters. I’m about to dive into my fourth Blood Bowl novel. And I have the Mutant Chronicles film novelization on the line, screaming for my attention. In the meantime, I’m creating a series of puzzles and games for a new line of children’s books, and I just finished up two large pieces for my third computer game gig of the year.

Mix that in with school conferences, Marty’s play this weekend, planning for convention trips and summer vacations, and there’s precious little time for anything else. Still, I can’t complain. While my life may be filled to bursting, it’s filled with wonderful stuff.

In the interstitial bits, to keep me sane, I do and read what I can. Marty and I recently finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS, and we really enjoyed it. If you like mysteries, it works more like interactive manga than a regular computer game, but the story is as strong and compelling as anything in print. I polished off Scott McCloud‘s excellent Making Comics, which completes his trifecta of must-read comics on comics. And at the moment Dan Simmons‘ The Crook Factory and James Farr‘s Xombie (the new illustrated novel which just shipped!) are stomping through a cage match for my attention.

Whew! So, how you doing?

Local Drama

My son Marty is in a play here in Beloit next weekend (April 23—25) with KFAD (Kids Fun and Drama). It’s at the First Presbyterian Church at 7 PM Friday and Saturday and 1 PM on Sunday. Local acting legend Josh Burton directs the kids through a series of vignettes from selected works of Shakespeare. If you’re in the area, please join us.