I didn’t get to go to Gencon this year, and haven’t really been paying to much attention to the news that came out of it. I was a little surprised to hear that my game Classroom Deathmatch won the Indie Rpg Awards Free Game of the Year award! Holy shit! It was also a runner up for Game of the Year and Best Production. Matt, Nick and I are very pleased. You can download a free copy of the game here.
Classroom Deathmatch is a full mod of Panty Explosion, designed to emulate Koushun Takami’s excellent novel (and the film and manga it inspired) Battle Royale. We released Classroom Deathmatch for sale in both book and PDF form early in 2007, just a day before the Virginia Tech shootings. I spent a lot of time after the release trying to assure people that we we’ren’t trying to cash in on that tragedy:
“The game had been on sale for less then a day when the shootings happened. I thought about pulling the game off the market for a month or so but decided against it. Classroom Deathmatch is all about making tough choices and dealing with difficult subjects. Murder and betrayal weren’t easy subjects to deal with before the Virginia Tech shootings, and they aren’t easy subjects to deal with now. But a good RPG needs to push players to answer difficult questions and deal with uncomfortable situations. Classroom Deathmatch does this damn well (in my opinion), and I think if you tried it you would like it.“
Despite the really nasty attention we got, the game went on to sell several hundred copies in it’s first few months of release,and received several really excellent reviews.
After we sold out of the initial print run we decided to let the book go out of print. Matt, Nick and I were all involved in other projects at the time, and none of us had the drive or time to shepherd Classroom Deathmatch through another print run and round of promotion. We instead decided that we would offer the game for free on the Atarashi Games site.
Anyway, thanks for the award. that’s awesome!
Jake
September 5, 2008 at 1:41 pm |
FYI, CTB has returned; Autel’s ready to restart the campaign! Looking forward to having Grujav back in the thick of things.
April 22, 2009 at 7:00 am |
Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is a lot more than I expected for when I stumpled upon a link on SU telling that the info is awesome. Thanks.
April 22, 2009 at 8:23 am |
“Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is a lot more than I expected for when I stumpled upon a link on SU telling that the info is awesome. Thanks.”
Thanks?