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Friday, December 27, 2013

Mantic's Next New Game

At the most recent Mantic Open Day, Ronnie mentioned the possibility of taking on other franchises for the tabletop games treatment in the manner of Mars Attacks. The success of that Kickstarter, he said, showed Mantic could handle someone else's ip respectfully and innovatively. He also said there were other properties he would love to take on - Aliens and Predator perhaps having been one of them, although Mantic were never actually in the conversation about any rights to make a game from those franchises.

So what properties was he thinking of? Here are a few I would like to see:
  1. Game of Thrones. Games like Spartacus have shown it's possible to build intrigue into tabletop games alongside violence, but the massively popular book series also has great potential for a massed combat system - an army of white walkers versus the elite Black Watch, anyone?
  2. The Walking Dead. There already is a boardgame based on the comic book/tv show. But I can also see this as an adaptation of the Deadzone/Mars Attacks rulesets with missions to recover foodstuffs and medical supplies and so on. Players could choose from factions including original survivors, Woodbury, and the hunters. Perhaps you could even choose your band of survivors from all those characters - Rick and the Governor working together! - and fight against card controlled zombies. The options for a Kickstarter exclusive are clear - if the game is based on the comic, you can get TV versions, and vice versa.
  3. Netrunner/Magic/any other ccg. With Mars Attacks, Mantic took a series of collectible cards and made a game out of them. Netrunner and Magic are already games of course, but they don't have collectible miniatures - yet. Personally I'd love to see an adaptation of Netrunner's covert ops and skullduggery into a miniatures game. Mantic love putting cards in their games so it's not such a long stretch.
  4. Star Trek, Star Wars, and/or Stargate. Three sci-fi franchises with legions of fans both within and without the tabletop gaming community. The success of X-Wing and Wing Commander shows the two bigger franchises have support, but this may well mean the rights to them are all tied up. As far as I know though, there is not a Stargate game on the market. 
  5. Planet of the Apes. The rights to this could be pretty hot with a new raft of movies being made. But I'd still love the opportunity to tell my opponent to take his stinkin' paws off me. The damn, dirty ape!
So thats my top five(ish) ip's for Mantic to take on. What would you like to see them develop?

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