Reviews of Into The Odd, Wonder & Wickedness and Chthonic Codex

New products came out, and people wrote reviews. If you wrote one not in the list, let me know.

Into the Odd

Author: Chris of Soogagames (go there for more material)  who by the way just released a free-as-beer Oddpendium.

Over at In the Shadow of Puzzled Vikings Daniel Luce has a solo playthorugh and some encounters.

Alex Chalk wrote a review in his blog To Distand Land.

Noah Stevens (of the Noah Tax) reviews it at Hapless Mercenary

Sophia Brandt’s review at Die Heart

By the way, Levi Kornelsen, who made the supersweet ItO cover, made a great modern character sheet and then another more old looking.

This section ends with some quotable soundbites:

This game is soooooo good! Simple rules, wonderfully weird setting. It’s my go-to for gritty, deadly, dungeon-y adventure.
+John Harper

I just ran my first session of Chris McDowall’s Into the Odd. Know what was cool? Everything. More specifically? A party managed to crawl 21 rooms worth of dungeon in under 3 hours. Now that’s efficient
+Alex Chalk

Awesome stuff. Mechanics are really simple but lead to very satisfying play
+Nathan Ryder

It’s vague enough to permit a great deal of creativity and just barely rulesy enough to stay together for a game that will need no consultation of the book under time pressure
+Noah Stevens

The rules get out of the way and provide resolution mechanics without being cumbersome. Fighting is fast and lethal and doesn’t mess around with armor class. Gear generation is delightful.
+Andrew Shields

As a starter game, a pick-up for veterans, or a quick convention drop, Into The Odd definitely delivers and will certainly sit on my mobile device for quick access and in my convention kit.
+Paul Baldowski

Wonder & Wickedness

Author: Brendan of Necropraxis

A first review from A Dungeon of Signs.

In German, a review of from oliof.blogspot.ch

Chthonic Codex

I’m the author, you’re at my blog already. 🙂

Stuart of False Machine made a four-fold review. Stuart got a bunch of things perfectly right:

1. on Cryptic Creatures
2. on Academia Apocrypha
3. on Mysteries & Mystagogues
4. on Goats and handouts and all that’s in the box and a final commentary

the TL;DR: version is the second half of the fourth part.

Harald writes about it here, Courtney in his blog

Dyson (yes, that Dyson) wrote a review of the box of the boxed set itself. I’m not even joking.

New Release: Into The Odd by Chris McDowall

Chris McDowall’s Into the Odd contains everything you need to create a character and explore an industrial world of cosmic meddlers and horrific hazards. This is a fast, simple game, to challenge your wits rather than your understanding of complex rules.

You seek Arcana, strange devices hosting unnatural powers beyond technology. They range from the smallest ring to vast machines, with powers from petty to godlike. Beside these unnatural items that they may acquire, your characters remain grounded as mortals in constant danger.

The game is 48 pages, containing:

• Original artwork from Jeremy Duncan, Levi Kornelsen, and others.
• The fastest character creation out there, getting you playing as soon as possible
• Player rules that fit on a single page, keeping a focus on exploration, problem solving, and fast, deadly combat.
• The complete guide to running the game as Referee. From making the most of the rules to creating your own monsters and Arcana.
• Sample monsters, arcanum, traps, and hazards.
• Character advancement from Novice to Master.
• Rules for running your own Company, and taking it to war with an original mass combat system.
• Complete guide to the Odd World, from the cosmopolitan city of Bastion and its hidden Underground, through to backwards Deep Country, the unexplored Golden Lands.
• The Iron Coral, sample expedition site to test the players’ survival skills.
• The Fallen Marsh, a deadly wilderness to explore.
• Hopesend Port, a settlement to regroup and sail on to further adventure.
• Thirteen bonus pages of tools and random tables from the Oddpendium.

Into the Odd comes both in PDF and Print + PDF. The printed books will ship in January.

If the book is ready, why are you releasing now and shipping in January?

First of all, time. The book is ready but not printed. Printing and having them delivered here takes a while. And shipping anything in December and hope it arrives across the ocean before Christmas is not very reasonable.

Second, while the book is print-ready, additional eyes help.

Third, I’m more or less homeless for the next two-three weeks. Which makes fulfilment of print orders a problem.

Fourth, there’s going to be a major bungle up in how EU small businesses sell things online. I might have to stop selling PDFs to EU countries due to new regulations that make it too much of a burden. So, if you are in the EU and want a PDF, get it before 2015. More updates on this topic soon.