DEATH ROBOT JUNGLE
Designer: Andre Novoa & Manuel Pinheiro | Publisher: Games Omnivorous
We don’t often review vinyl at Tabletop Gaming Magazine. This might even be the first time. This is the weird ‘RPG setting on a record’ from recent weird RPG maker Games Omnivorous – it’s designed to be a full album of music that you can use to plan your roleplaying session with, or even use as the soundtrack.
The album itself is a kind of crunchy synth-laden calypso of scenes and settings. A mix of funky bass lines, conga drums, buzz-saw guitar are all present. There’s no instruction as to how we’re meant to be interpreting it, but that’s probably the point. So instead you’re imagining the (probably poisonous) flora and (probably many-toothed) fauna of the island you’re exploring with your group.
The sleeve also works as a GM screen – presenting a tropical island containing the titular death robot jungle. Using a grid pattern, the island offers all sort of weird treats from large statues, strange industrialising robots in the north and even a volcano. Naturally the idalnd is surrounded by sunken places and huge monsters. The screen also offers a few of the local inhabitants – like ‘bushes with long tongues’ and ‘tiny transparent frogs’.
If you’re into highly narrative OSR style gaming, this will already have you heading over to the Games Omnivorous store (where you can just get the digital version for €10 if you don’t want the record, or postage). For the rest of us, it’s a little like thumbing through a bestiary because you didn’t get time to arrange a session this week. It’s a nice diversion through the jungle but not something anyone would expect you to break out with regularity.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
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