At one time, Animalball dreamed of creating gamer-fueled games and selling them directly over the internet as pdfs. Then we had a revelation-- after careful research, numerous marketing studies and one lengthy consultation session with Gary Gygax, we discovered that there's no money to be made in selling pdfs without also selling print copies of the games. Then we also discovered that printing games took a lot of money... and time... and effort... and not-lazy people. It seems we didn't have any of those things. But fear not! We're still making games, we've just decided to give them all away for free!
Download and enjoy. If you have feedback on any of the games, please email us at feedback@animalball.com.
ANIMALBALL GAMES SIGNATURE PRODUCTS
Instant Game: By Mike and Kyle Jones
Instant Game is the completely random gaming system through which the players and gamemaster determine the genre, setting, location and plot of the game at the beginning of each session. Years in development, the full version of Instant Game comes with all the rules for creating and playing a campaign, and has the full charts for creating every aspect of your game session, including optional tables for villains, major NPCs, personality traits and more.
Here's the deal- a lot of roleplaying games claim to be "pick up and play" games. They're full of it, because Instant Game is the genuine article. At the start of an Instant Game session, neither the GM nor the players know what game they will be playing. The game master and players sit down with the Instant Game tables (and trust us, there's a ton of tables) and roll up what the game genre, play style, tech level and other variables of the game will be. While the players make their characters, the GM uses the other tables to determine other game factors like the game objective, starting location, villains, major NPCs and the like. We are fully aware how intimidating this sounds-- the prospect of sitting down with your group to play a game without even knowing if it's going to be a high magic fantasy warlord game or a modern era espionage thriller with zombies-- but just download the game and roll up some sample games and you'll see what we're so excited about.
Instant Game is unlike any other RPG that you've ever played. But don't take our word for it, spend a couple hours playing it... then you'll understand. We've played a ton of IG games and kept records of our online transcripts of the games. Check them out and see the random insanity if you still have any doubts.
Animalball Melee: By Mike Jones
Animalball Melee is a simplified d20 combat engine for quick and easy gladiator fighting. While it can be used for a full-fledged roleplaying campaign, Animalball Melee is intended for one-shot, pick-up-and-play combats. An homage to the Fanatasy Trip's original game, Melee, Animalball Melee is takes the d20 combat system and boils it down to its bare essentials to streamline combat.
Animalball is designed as a pick-up-and-play game. As author Mike Jones commented, "For players who are familiar with other d20-based Open Gaming products, Animalball Melee will likely be an experience that is simultaneously unique and familiar. The well-known Open Game elements are there, but everything superfluous has been stripped away until there is nothing left but pure physical combat."
Animalball Melee is a 32 page stand-alone game of gladiator combat which utilizes a simplified d20 rules-set. Animalball Melee is suitable for two to six players.
50 Bar Encounters : By Mike & Kyle Jones
Tired of your players walking into a bar and seeing the same salty-talking, gruff tavernkeeper that they saw in the last town, and the town before it, and the town before that? You know the routine: players walk in, approach the barkeep and then roll a Gather Information check to see what they can learn. Boring.
Animalball Games has the answer for you: 50 Bar Encounters. How about the next time they enter a bar they find themselves in the middle of a brazen, halfling robbery with Beads of Force being thrown around like candy? Or maybe they will be approached by an earnest, desperate individual who is eager to sell them a medusa head. Or quite possibly they will be harassed by two large Yak Folk that will not stop spitting spitballs at the players when their backs are turned.
Developed under the OGL, 50 Bar Encounters is exactly what the name says- 50 encounters to use in your D&D or fantasy campaign. Each encounter is a brief, short encounter to throw into your existing campaign, so short and entertaining, others deadly serious which can be expanded into entire sidequests if desired.
Sandbox Hill: By Kyle Jones
I remember that day. The sun was bright and the grass grew high. But in under an hour we lost half of our men. The bullets were flying faster than we could follow them. The casualties were overwhelming. But we showed those bastards that the boys of the third infantry could bring forth the fires of hell as good as anyone. For every one of us that survived, three died. They tell us all that matters is that we won, but somehow I can't stop thinking about my boys that didn't make it back. I think about them, and wonder if the guys in charge even know what the cost of winning was. Yeah, I was there. I was there the day we won the Battle for Timmy's Sandbox.
Sandbox Hill is an 18 page simulation/wargame of the simplest variety. Get your army men, get your rubber bands and be prepared for a fall-down drag-out war that may take the whole weekend.
The Steadfast Shield: By Caz Granberg
All that stands between a vast horde of the undead and the sleepy towns and defenseless farms of Michevon is an ancient magic. Now, a powerful evil is on the verge of undoing that enchantment, to flood the world of the living in a nightmare tide of rotting flesh and malign magic. Worse, people all over the county quake with fear and hide behind locked doors as cannibal shadows stalk human prey. Can you and your companions discover the secrets of the Steadfast Shield before it's too late?
The Steadfast Shield is a 32 page, beginner level adventure for four to six characters. A great introduction to the most popular fantasy role-playing game in the industry.
Stories System: By Mike Jones
This is the rules-set written by Mike to be used in any game genre. It is intended to simplify the gaming process so the players and GM can focus more on the actual role-playing, rather than the numbers and mountains of rules. Animalball will be utilizing Stories System in many of the products it's developing. Currently, it is the game engine being used in the full version of Instant Game as well as the Barebones Edition.
Stories System is available for free distribution and incorporation into third-party games. See download for details.
ABG'S OTHER FREE PRODUCTS
HeroBattle: By Mike Jones
Hero Battle is a forum-based game of cutthroat strategy for eight or more players. The rules are deceptively simple—however game play is anything but. Each player is assigned a Hero for the Battle, and as the game starts, all Heroes have an equal number of hit points (HP). Every turn, each player chooses two Heroes to hit and one Hero to heal. Any Hero reduced to zero is dead, and the last one left alive wins.
To complicate things further, Heroes can gain bonuses when their nemeses are killed or suffer penalties if their secret identity is revealed. Every Battle brings new twists and possibilities, from prison gangs to celebrity plastic surgery. So the players always have to remain on their toes.
Bulldrek: By Mike Jones
Bulldrek was a product of the moment that was pure serendipity. It was built around the online bulletin board structure that created it, and that online medium shaped and guided it for both good and bad. As Bulldrekkers came to know one another in real life, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a stab at a face-to-face version of this sort of collaborative storytelling—something that might go well with the company of good friends and the consumption of age-appropriate beverages. So I created Bulldrek, the RPG.
Many of the terms and concepts of the game are taken straight from the old Bulldrek forums themselves, and the game is intended for a braggart’s style of outlandish fantasy storytelling. The point of each session is to try to have a rollicking good time, and hopefully create something lasting in the group memory that hasn’t been done before.
God's Dice: By Mike Jones
Very simply, God’s Dice is the greatest unfinished sci-fi campaign world ever! Emphasis is on “unfinished.” The God’s Dice campaign world is my take on the solar system 1,000 years in the future, in a setting where faster-than-light travel is still just fantasy, and despite finding itself still alone in the lonely universe, mankind has managed to diversify itself into a stunning array of forms.
Legacy of Justice: By the Animalball Community
Legacy of Justice is the second of Mike's unfinished worlds. As he says, "It started from just three words: my brother called me up one day and said, “I’ve got it! I know what our next project needs to be: Post-apocalyptic superheroes!” Okay… so maybe post-apocalyptic is only one word. But anyway, I was blown away. All I needed was a way to blow up the Earth, and Legacy of Justice would be the superhero world that rose from the ashes. The ideas came to us fast and hard. We quickly developed the flux-shattered Earth, and with the help of our forum members, we began to compile world elements. Imagining a post-apocalyptic Earth was the easy part. We didn’t need to dwell on that. What we wanted was snippets of just a couple paragraphs each, detailing some special corner of this new landscape."
Ascension to Olympus : By Kyle Jones
Written under the M&M Superlink license, Ascension to Olympus allows players to create and play Greek Godlings (demigods) who have to vanquish monsters and compete for popularity amongst the mortals to acheive Godhood. If they are good enough, they can ascend to Olympus as a full-fledged god.
Ascension to Olympus is not a stand-alone game. It is a free supplement that requires the first edition rules of Mutants & Masterminds to play. Ascension to Olympus was written during Animalball's 2004 Beer and Pretzel's Challenge. With the exception of the sample adventure, the author wrote the entire game in a single weekend.
BeCKS: By Mike Jones
Written by Mike and originally published in the Shadowrun Supplemental, BeCKS is a character generation system for Shadowrun. Even though BeCKS adds even more rules to the already rules-laden Shadowrun, this is a great utility to incorporate into your SR gaming.
Oh yeah, and it's the first gaming-related item Mike ever had published.
