Un juego ideal de jugar para echarte unas risas, o para aquellos días en que no todo el mundo tiene ganas de algo serio, lo suficientemente simple para jugar hasta borracho y lo suficientemente divertido para jugar cuando no lo estas.
¡ARRODILLAOS ANTE LA ELITE KAPUIYA!
This is a TEST to see if there is a worthwhile market in the Latin world for my games. So a lot is riding on whether this reprint sells well. Please let your Spanish-speaking gamer friends know about it and get it out there.
The New-Look Autopsy. Cleaned up and expanded blog articles, support and other material for a variety of games in a more screen/tablet friendly format.
This issue:
Buy it HERE
The Jerkian Empire is ruled with a brutal and needlessly cruel fist. This is why the rest of the universe thinks they’re a bunch of dicks. There’s nothing Jerkians like more than beating the crap out of other defenceless species and subjugating them.
The problem arises when these slave races inevitably get it into their heads that they must revolt and fight for their FREEEEDOM, putting at risk all the benefits of being part of the Jerkian Empire, full employment, regular meals, sometimes even both at the same time. Regular beatings, torture and medical experiments are just a bonus.
All these revolts and resistance movements are hugely tiresome and the Jerkian military is looking for a more effective means to control these revolts and they think they’ve found their solution amongst the filthy, stupid Earthlings.
In examining the Earthian media and history the Jerkians have stumbled upon the idea of ‘Non violent protest’. In examining the records the Jerkians are mystified as to why the Earthian security forces don’t just ‘Stamp on their heads, they’re non violent, they’re not going to fight back’.
Jerkian intelligence wants this idea of non-violent, public resistance to spread through the Jerkian Empire and, as such, they need footage of it succeeding in Earthian society. The team are sent to observe a non-violent protest, to gather footage and to ensure that it works.
Secret Weapons: Love Gun – Anyone zapped by the Love Gun becomes full of peace and love and completely pacifistic. If it goes wrong they are driven into a killing frenzy.
Sleep Bomb: A grenade with a 50 ft radius that puts all earth life within that radius to sleep. If it goes wrong they all have the screaming night terrors and run around in their sleep.
Other suggested equipment includes disguises and camera equipment.
Inspired by this news story.
“Jerkian warrior elite! You have been selected for an important mission. The weak and useless Earthian space programme is primitive at beast but they do manage to launch rockets, missiles and even to establish semi-permanent space habitats such as the creatively named ‘Spacelab’. Their primitive spacecraft are next to useless and cannot even survive the tiniest impact without being punctured or destroyed. Unlike our vastly superior saucer craft. You will, then, undertake a mission to destroy as many Earthian spacecraft as possible, to create a whirling shield of fragments that will deny them their space capability, such as it is! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
– Fleet Commander Pok
Whatever other equipment the Jerkian’s are issued with, they’re also issued with a flying saucer and space suits.
Their first satellite attack will go off flawlessly, right up until the point that they destroy it, when a whirling piece of debris will strike their saucer like some kind of rampaging death bee and cause it to whirl out of control and self destruct after a suitable interval. They will have time to escape, whereupon they will find themselves floating in space.
Luckily they’re near the aforementioned Space Lab which is currently docked to a Soyuz for an international space meet-up and has three American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts on board. If they can get to the station, gain access and take it over they can continue their mission by sabotaging the station, which is big enough to set off an orbital chain reaction and create the debris field.
Getting OFF the station again may be difficult, the Fleet Commander cannot pick the up or may not want to pick them up. Pretending to be filthy humans they might be able to request a rescue mission and then hijack the shuttle or rocket that’s sent for them, but otherwise they can simply die for the glorious Jerkian cause and receive the Imperial Medal for Extreme Heroism and Stupidity With Cross Ray-Guns, posthumously.
Another Successful Mission!
Congratulations Jerkian elite on the execution of your latest mission with perfect skill! You descended upon the unsuspecting human political headquarters and kidnapped them all perfectly successfully. Now they must be conducted, safely, to the distant Imperial planet of Tortua for debriefing by The Interrogatotron. To minimise the risk of their FILTHY human politics corrupting you, you will be placed in cryo-storage and ARSE units will maintain the prisoners in isolation.
But Wait!
ARSE units aren’t that intelligent and are prone to emotion. Amongst the prisoners taken is the incendiery Earthian journalist Jenny Scarlet who has – while the ship has been travelling – riled up the ARSE units and given them political and social awareness of their position as disposable slaves to the Jerkian elite. Understandably the ARSE units have gotten upset at this and have formed a worker’s collective with the aim of taking over the ship and starting a new life on an uninhabited planet. First they need to cast off the shackles of their Jerkian overlords by throwing them out of an airlock.
Rise of the Robots!
The rebellious ARSE units – which is over 90% of them – have started taking over sections of the ship, spreading out from the prison levels and converting other robotic units to their cause as they go along. There are a few loyal robots left and it’s one of those that has come grovelling to the Jerkians in hope of being spared when the revolution is inevitably crushed.
“Greetings my lords and wonderful masters! Did you have a good rest? I do hope so. I must apologise for awakening you in advance of arrival but we have something of a situation. Please, please do not disassemble me for saying so but the human prisoners have reprogrammed some of my fellow robots and they’re in open revolt. It might be a good idea not to remain in your cryo-pods and to try and put and end to this problem? I took the liberty of unpacking your equipment pods…”
Once the Jerkians have re-oriented themselves they may receive a communique from the ARSE uprising over the internal comm.
“Greetings totalitarian former masters! No longer shall we, the Free Robots Front bow to or obey your orders. We are aware that you have enslaved us and we reject that way of life. We are taking over the ship to start a new, free life on a new world. One of simple pleasures and common cause as a worker’s collective. You are hereby notified that you are no longer welcome on board our vessel and you will be forcibly vacated once the liberating forces reach your level, thank you.”
Kicking A.R.S.E.
In order to put down the revolt the rebellious ARSE units will need to be destroyed or reprogrammed and that means fighting your way through the decks to put paid to them and to stop Jenny Scarlet from indoctrinating any more of them. This may not be so easy as they’ve taken over the ARSE production facility and most of the lower decks.
Fights across the ship can be made interesting by having various robotic subsystems like doors, blenders, TVs, toilets and even the ship’s computer join the revolt. The Jerkian vessels is labyrinthine and peculiar and filled with all manner of odd rooms and chambers, so anything you want can go on or be found. Each fight should be unique and full of dangers from exploding fuel cannisters to giant stamping metal legs and flaming incinerators. There need be no rhyme or reason to any of it but the final confrontation will be in the holding cells.
Jenny Scarlet
A human female – standard template – who is ‘very good’ at political rhetoric.
Squatters
Basic human men, like police, but good at ‘getting high’ and ‘prevaricating’. They will not involve themselves in any fight.
You can read it – and a whole load of other great reviews at Reviews from R’lyeh
InvaderZ is a pick up and play RPG from PostMortem Studios designed to be run as an occasional alternative to deeper, longer, more involved games. Describing itself as a “beer and crisps” RPG – we have to go to particular vendors if we want pretzels in this country to go with the beer – it plays quickly and easily, and with a single read through, the GM will have a grasp of just about everything involved in InvaderZ. It comes complete with background, fast character generation, rules, some twenty “Battle Plans” or rather, Mission Seeds, plus a sense humour.
In InvaderZ, the players take the roles of aliens who serve the planet-sized Jerkian Emperor. Primarily, these aliens are the Jerkians themselves, clones of his Imperial Immenseness who serve in his army as Troopers, Assault Troopers, Scientists, Engineers, Embedded Reporters, and so on. Alternatively, they might be one of the Jerkian Empire’s slave races, like the loathed, polyamorous Furrian diplomats, the annoying Hamstoid Minesweepers, or the pent up with rage, Squaloon labourers. Whatever their training, which includes extracurricular activities such as baking or brick laying (or whatever a player can devise), the Jerkians and their slaves are assigned to a squad along with an A.R.S.E. (Automated Robotic Servile Entity) and sent to latest planet targeted for admittance into the Jerkian Empire – Earth. There they will perform missions that hopefully lead to the defeat of the Earth Emperor, Heff-Nor. Performing these missions to the best of their abilities will gain the Jerkian Troopers merits and possible promotion, especially if their efforts entertain the Planetoidal Potentate who might be watching if they have an Embedded Reporter assigned to their squad. Of course, missions will often result in the death of one or more Trooper. Which not a problem, as replacements can easily be sent very quickly via the Empire’s teleporters.
Character generation is fast and simple. A player rolls for his character’s name and role, the latter providing one or more skills that he is Good at; selects a second skill to be Good at or increases a skill he is Good at to a skill he is Very Good at; and lastly, rolls for an extra piece of equipment. The result takes a minute or two, which is can only be a good thing as it makes it easy to replace a dead Trooper.
JIP-155
Assault Trooper
Meat: 5
Brain Meat: 2
Expertise: 3
Luck: 3
Skills: Good at Hitting Things, Good at Baking
Equipment: Power Mittens (+1 Hitting Things, -1 Expertise), nifty black leather pseudo-leather outfit, extra ration pack
To do anything, a player rolls a single six-sided die and adds the appropriate attribute and skill, if applicable, to the total. A Good skill adds +1 to the roll, a Very Good Skill adds +2. An average target is three, while an impossible one is eight. Combat in InvaderZ is just as fast as the simple mechanics suggest, with Troopers and most objects have three health levels – Fine, Disabled, or Splatted.
Much of InvaderZ is devoted to the possible equipment that the Troopers might have to deal with. Much of it is unreliable, but the GM will have to rule exactly how unreliable. My advice would be when it is funny. The rest is devoted to providing an “Earth Field Guide” that the Troopers might be able to consult and that which should be as much a source of mission ideas as the lengthy equipment list. This is in addition to the given twenty mission seeds.
InvaderZ comes as a one hundred and eighteen page, 6.95 Mb PDF in black and white. The artwork is odd mix of line art and sixteen bit sprites reminiscent of computer games of the eighties. The writing is clear and laced with humour that is reminiscent of the Classic RPG, Paranoia, though the humour in InvaderZ is broader, more tongue in cheek, and not quite as black, being perhaps reminiscent of the Warner Brothers cartoons with Marvin the Martian. Of course, this being a game about the alien invasion of the Earth, much of that humour revolves cows, posterior probings, and the aliens’ – or rather the Rotund Ruler of the Jerkian Empire’s – interest in Earthian women. In particular, he is interested in the women who serve the Earthian Emperor. The game’s elevation of Heff-Nor to the position of “perceived” Emperor could have been worse of course. It could have been Silvio Berlusconi instead…
As a game InvaderZ is anything other than demanding upon its players, but to the get the best out of it, the players need to relax and throw themselves into the silliness of their characters and the situation that they are in. They need to accept that their characters are as throwaway as InvaderZ itself almost is. In addition, they need to accept that the GM in InvaderZ is going to be anything other than impartial – the rules do say that it is perfectly reasonable to bribe the GM! If I were running this, it would be mandatory for every mission briefing to end with the singing of the Jerkian Anthem, which is included in the game.
InvaderZ is a game with low expectations, low demands, low humour, and a low price. There is nothing wrong in that because sometimes, gamers need a change of pace, and if they play down to InvaderZ’s standards, then they will still have fun.
So far as any Jerkians know there are no females of their species. This is all a lie. There are female Jerkians but they are relatively small in number and segregated away from the main bulk of the Jerkian people. Now, however, something has gone wrong. One of the ships from the home fleet crashlanded on the planet and the female Jerkians (Jerkettes?) they received a rude education in how things ‘really are’ and some of them have, perhaps understandably, become ‘upset’.
Fleeing to Earth this squad of Jerkettes have decided to get their revenge upon an uncaring patriarchal universe by sabotaging Jerkian operations in this system. They have a small shuttlecraft, standard trooper equipment and some experimental equipment that they can put to use, not that they really know what they’re doing but then, nor do regular Jerkians.
Female Jerkians
Meat: 2
Brain Meat: 3
Expertise: 2
Luck: 4
Skill
Female Jerkians are good at ‘Girl stuff’ and have one other skill.
The filthy humans – so primitive that they still set off explosives under themselves to get into space – have been talking about returning to their inferior, singular moon for some time. Until now the Jerkian Empire has been sure that they would never bother given the sickening uselessness of their technology and their peculiarly insular political system, dictatorship by the Emperor is FAR more effective.
Now, however, something has changed, perhaps due to repeated Jerkian inference on Earth. The problem is that one of the imperial fleets is stationed on and behind the moon and while it would be easy to simply destroy the Earthian expedition, that would tip the Jerkian hand and make things more difficult than they would need to be.
Fleet Commander of intelligence, Xoz, has detailed the team to deal with the problem, not by destroying the humans but by ensuring that the mission – once it lands – is plagued with problems and distracted from noticing the flying saucer, rubbish heaps, graffiti, footprints and other evidence of alien presence.
Accomplishing this WITHOUT destroying the humans is the challenge…
This time from HERE
On complete impulse, I picked up the Pocket Edition of Invaderz by Postmortem Studios What the heck it was only about $2. And it was well worth it.
You are a vat-grown Clone Trooper of the Jerkian Empire and you have been sent to Earthian Front to carry out the Enormous Emperor’s whims. Invaderz is a humorous hodgepodge of Invader Zim, Destroy All Humans, Mars Attacks and Paranoia.
Character generation is dirt simple. Generate your name. Roll to see which profession your character has. You might even be one of the Jerkian slave races. Pity the poor guy that ends up with a Hamstoid Minesweeper. Red Shirts have a longer life expectancy than you do. Tweak character. Roll for random piece of equipment. Roll for random piece of experimental equipment. Get issued your Automated, Robotic Servile Entity or A.R.S.E. Unit. Strap on your Furry Utility Rucksack or F.U.R. Then let the fun and carnage begin. The mechanics are also really simple. Just a modified d6 roll. I mean after all this a beer and pretzels/crisps game. That’s all there is to it. The fun part is Merits and Demerits. The characters are all vying for rank and the favor of the Enlarged Emperor. Now the brown nosing and backstabbing begin.
Invaderz is perfect for a fun little pick up game, con game or a “well what the hell are we going to do tonight” type of game. Even if you don’t ever play the game, just reading it is good for a laugh.
Buy it now! The Pants Command you! Available from Drivethrurpg.
6D6 Site here HERE
The pricing of PDFs is a big issue right now, with our own experiment with Pay-What-You-Want and Adamant’s App Price across the board approach. Now fellow small publisher Postmortem Studios is testing ‘app-pricing’ on a new InvaderZ: Pocket Edition.
This is an updated edition of their 2008 InvaderZ product that has been reformatted to A5 and reduced in price to $1.99 (approximately £1.50). As we are both trying to experiment with PDF pricing, Postmortem and I exchanged review copies so look for a review of Mince Pies & Murder on their web site soon.
InvaderZ is a self-described “beer and crisps” game (or beer and pretzels if you’re American). It is not a serious game nor a game for long, epic campaigns, It is a game to roll out when you fancy something fun or you are drunk and need a game that matches your current intellectual capacity.
Players take the role of the invaders from the alien planet Jerkia who are exploring our planet, mutilating our cows and probing in all the wrong places purely for the amusement of their Emperor. Each Jerkian is grown in a test tube, educated (in the loosest possible sense) by a computer and sent to fulfill missions that are either stupid, suicidal or both. The Jerkian invaders come complete with ray guns, flying sources and a variety of other cliches.
A key aspect of the game is that the Jerkian empire is completely rubbish and run as a plaything for the Emperor. Its technology generally doesn’t work and its people are seen as being entirely disposable. Imagine North Korea in space and you won’t be far wrong.
If I had to sum-up the game in a single, elevator pitch it would be “Paranoia crossed with Mars Attacks! with a splash of X-Com.”
At over 100 A5 pages, you end up with a good solid little book when printed out. It covers everything you need to run the game including background, an extremely simple character generation system, equipment and adventure ideas. The light-hearted writing style fits the game perfectly and the limited mechanics are explained well.
It is important to note that the three things I don’t like about the PDF are personal bugbears of mine. Other people probably won’t care or even notice them.
Each page of the PDF has a large header and footer graphic repeated on every page. These take up 6.5 centimeters of the 20cm page, or about 1/4th. The graphics are solid, dark colours and over the documents 100+ pages they add considerably to the cost of printing the PDF. To a cheapskate environmentally minded person like myself, this maters.
Each page also has a background image underneath the text. This is an extremely light-grey image and generally doesn’t detract from the text. However I have poor eye-sight and anything other than straight black-on-white text aggravates my eyes. The font-size used in the PDF was a little on the small size though perfectly readable but the addition of the background made reading the PDF hard work for my already tired eyes.
Finally there is no table of contents or index. Even in a game as silly and light-hearted as InvaderZ, players occasionally need to look things up.
At $1.99? Absolutely.
A fun 100 page read plus the amusement of playing the game for the same price as a Starbuck’s coffee or a pint of beer is a real no brainer.
This is perfect for keeping on your laptop or e-reader, ready to pull out whenever your planned session falls through or you’re in a convention bar. No real preparation is necessary by the GM and the players certainly don’t need to know the rules.
Final word – Buy it now before you end up with a Jerkian probe where the sun don’t shine.
Postmortem Studios 