Raiders Of The Lost Ark at 45

45 years ago my life changed, though I didn’t know it yet as I wouldn’t see Raiders Of The Lost Ark for another year or so. A rip-roaring adventure, a character study, a question of belief, a how-is-this-a-PG horror at times.

The Furious

The Furious (trailer) (not to be confused with serial killer hunting FBI show Furious which I also heard about this week) is one of those martial arts heavy action movies Like Kill Zone and Furie where human traffickers are shorthand for Bad People You Can Cheer Seeing Them Messed Up At Great Length.

And it has Yayan Ruhian, Mad Dog from The Raid, with a bow.

And a bit where one of the heroed climbs out of an MMA cage on top of the people he’s fighting..

Playing very normal people...

Going about your regular business and then, boom, aliens.

Good thing I have games for these

Adding Doctor Who to Buffy in the things I have to do myself for the foreseeable future.

I could add Star Trek but I’ve never seriously tried to run that as an RPG.

Disclosure Day

Disclosure Day, directed and from a story by Steven Spielberg, sees him returning to aliens and coverups and brave people trying to learn or share the truth.

The marketing conceals and obscures a lot, images that will only really make sense in context.

It has the roving camera including around moving vehicles as in his War of The Worlds, and the big action moment reminded me of Jurassic Park and a presumably autobiographical moment early in The Fabelmans.

But while he’s famously looked at this before, the project of his it actually made me think of most was the miniseries he executive produced, Taken.

Clue

Clue is on YouTube free with ads in the UK. Just saying.

RPG Trader

RPG Trader is a newe webstore for tabletop RPGs, with print on demand by LuLu.

A policy banning generative AI material

Revenue splitting for teams of creators

Print-on-Demand via LuLu

A review system which doesn't effect visibility where you have the choice to recommend something and... that's it. There's no downvotes.

A Sensitive Content Policy which says you can sell things featuring NSFW material so long as it's flagged, just don't put anything NSFW on the store page.

Aiming for an indie space, like itch.io which has always been secondary for it.

Morgue has put all his taleturn games up for one, including a new print version of Tell Me More, Tell Me More.

Chicago By Ludonarrative

Ludonarrative Dissidents look at Chicago By Night V5 and how it reflects changes to Vampire: The Masquerade. Positive on the content, concerns on layout decisions, thoughts on playability versus readability. Noting the Beckoning and how many old vampires are still around (which was always a bit much for Chicago, coming first will do that) and the use of the adventure.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Eternal Whispers

Vampire: The Masquerade - Eternal Whispers is an overhead rotaty CRPG, like Disco Elysium with the slow reveals or a presumably less violent Redemption, about, yes, a vampire awakened from a long time in torpor. In this case in post-Sabbat Montreal, as part of its vampire history.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier, a first person? horror??? Star Trek game! starring Ro Laren!!!

(Also announced a base building game,. Outposts Unknown.)

Moviedrome

The BFI looks back at Moviedrome, the BBC2 cult film strand that served as film school for 1988-2000 kids, with presenter director Alex Cox and show producer Nick Freand Jones.

A Giles moment

Giles Exposition Song custom figure, by me, September 2006

Anthony Head

Anthony Head has died, aged 72. I love his work, and his commitment to animal rights and causes.

The Power Of Pride Bundle 2026

The Power Of Pride Bundle 2026 “is a grassroots mutual aid bundle that showcases indie media from hundreds of queer creators across the globe and provides them with direct financial aid. The sales event begins on June 1, 2026 and runs until July 6, 2026.”

396 items from 284 creators, “contents include items such as digital games, physical games, zines, books, comics, ASMR, and even a book of song lyrics” and including NSFW items in solidarity with those affected by censorship of queer subject matter regardless of content.

$60 full donation or $10 pay-what-you-can

VTM GMT 0

Should I offer to run a VTM game for the VTM GMT 0 discord? Hmm.

As a hangout with mostly active fans and Storyteller types I would expect interest but also OPINIONS.

And if I did, what kind? Something straightforward for those who haven’t had a chance to try V5? Something offbeat to take advantage of the demographic? Probably something relatively normal for a first go...

John Blanche

Hugely sad. We've lost John Blanche. It's hard to know where to begin. He set fire to a generation's imagination, and those fires show no sign of stopping burning. His work very much illuminated the darkness.

Kieron Gillen

John Blanche, WFRP The Enemy Within Campaign cover

Blanche brought a riot of colour and Bosch-like strangeness to Games Workshop, Fighting Fantasy and beyond, and kept that energy through a career spanning decades.

Stargate

The new Stargate series is not going ahead at Amazon, Empire mentioning reports saying it was too fans-only. (Unlike, say, The Rings Of Power, where that fan owns the company.) Stargate being such an easy setup I would guess another one will be along sometime.

Darkness Emergent LA itself

With the natural focus on the V? announcement and related panels, a look at the Darkness Emergent LARP and related events from the POV of an immersive horror event fan which makes for interesting reading for those looking at running something big.

I was not expecting a giant puppet monster. Nice!

Onslaught by Adam Wingard

Onslaught trailer and talk at Empire. The director of The Guest is back on his supersoldier villain thing! Adria Arjona (Andor) is the big damn hero, and Michael Biehn adds extra Terminator cred.

Hey now, hey now now...

So this is quite a thing. Thanks S.

Quoting the source:

Hey do you love This Corrosion by the Sisters of Mercy? Do you wish it sounded exactly like Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head?  

Well then Lauryl Sulfate & Her Ladies of Leisure have you covered!

I mean, they started it.

(And the cover of She’s Lost Control by Joy Division on the same EP is much more on-model.)