Blog Archives
Deathscribe review
Toxic Bag’s own Steve Baldwin was one of five writers whose short plays were selected for inclusion in Wildclaw Theatre’s “Deathscribe” festival earlier this month. The horror blog Terror From Beyond The Daves has posted this cool review of the event.
End of the year Lists!
As 2014 draws to a close, you’re no doubt inundated with “Best of” and “Worst of” lists all over the place. Try as we might, we couldn’t resist the urge to try a couple of those ourselves to see what the fuss is about. So, we sat down with our good friends Eric Van Tassell and Ele Matelan (both of Specimen fame, among other things) to list our top genre movies and television shows of the year. We had a couple of great in-depth chats and the results are here in our two bonus year-end podcasts!
Best Genre TV shows of 2014 Podcast
Best Genre movies of 2014 Podcast
And of course, everyone’s got an opinion, so let us know yours! Send us a note at podcast@toxicbag.com or drop a note on our Facebook page!
Specimen: Game designer interview
Over at the main Toxic Bag site, we’ve posted a conversation with Steve Baldwin, who designed our new board game, “Specimen.”
Mr. Blood’s new show: Sweetest Swing in Baseball
Yes, we’ve been releasing soundpacks for RPGs like crazy lately, but there’s also a whole lotta theatre happening in Toxic Bag Land. I’ve just wrapped up a production of After Ashley at Moraine Valley Community College, and I’m now in pre-production for Richard III at Oakton Community College, but this weekend I’m taking some time to help the other half of Toxic Bag, Steve Baldwin, record some music for his new sound design gig, Step Up Productions‘ The Sweetest Swing in Baseball. The music is being composed by our good pal Mike Przygoda. It’s a simple jazz trio, and we’ll be recording themes for the show as well as some preshow music down in our studio.
The Sweetest Swing In Baseball opens March 23, 2012.
Rock-Con wrap up
Hi, I’m Joe Griffin, from Toxic Bag Productions…
The Toxic Bag crew had a great time at Rock-Con this part weekend. We played lots of demos of Space Monster with some fantastic people. In the coming days, Mr. Blood will be posting after-action reports about some of those demo games on his blog. We’re learning a lot about where we need to take the game from where it is, and we’re quite blown away by the enthusiasm people have for Space Monster. Thanks, everybody!
Space Monster Press Release
Toxic Bag Announces New Sci-fi/horror Board Game
CHICAGO, IL (August 15, 2011) –Toxic Bag Productions announces its entry into the board game industry with its first product, titled SPACE MONSTER. SPACE MONSTER is a two-player card-driven board game that pits a group of human astronauts against a predatory extraterrestrial life form.
At the beginning of play, the SPACE MONSTER boards the ship in an embryonic stage and evolves throughout the game, becoming more difficult to kill as the turns progress. In addition to attempting to kill the crew, the monster can also destroy sections of the ship, forcing the human players to divide their efforts between defense and structural repair. The monster can win the game by either killing all seven members of the crew or damaging enough sections of the ship that it breaks apart. Adding the destruction of the ship as an alternate victory condition allows for varied strategies on the part of both players. The human player can use tools to effect repairs, construct weapons and trackers to hunt down the monster…or ultimately blow up the ship if all seems lost.
The SPACE MONSTER player constructs his/her monster from a selection of over 20 different attributes (offensive, defensive, or special abilities), providing new and different threats to the human player each game. This constantly changing monster, combined with 80 event cards driving game play, allows for infinite replayability. No two games should ever be the same.
Game designer Steve Baldwin said, “This game is something I’ve always wanted to play and couldn’t find anywhere in the industry – so we decided to make it.”
Production of the game will be funded in part with P500-style pre-orders. SPACE MONSTER is currently in the playtesting stage.
Toxic Bag plans to start taking pre-orders in September, 2011. For more information, visit http://toxicbag.com/spacemonster11.htm.
SPACE MONSTER will ship with:
7 Crew Character Cards
40 Crew Event Cards
40 Monster Event cards
21 Space Monster Attribute Cards
22″ x 34″ Game Board
Space Monster Screen
Images are not final artwork, and are subject to change.
Game designer: Steve Baldwin
Product code: TBPBG001
ABOUT TOXIC BAG
Toxic Bag Productions, Inc. is a Chicago-based company known primarily for its groundbreaking line of sound effects for pen-and-paper role playing games. The company’s critically acclaimed “Game Masters Collection” of sound effects is available on CD, as mp3 downloads, and packaged in an app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
Announcing Space Monster!
Over on his blog, Steve (Mr. Blood) has announced our forthcoming product, a card-driven board game called Space Monster. He’ll be posting a series of blog entries about the evolution of the game and the ongoing results of playtesting, artwork development and release dates. The first post describes the setup of the game.
Visit the Space Monster page on toxicbag.com.
Mr. Blood reviews “The Last Exorcism”
Over on his blog, my friend and business partner Mr. Blood has posted –at long last– his review of the vastly underrated movie “The Last Exorcism” and discusses what inspiration game masters might draw from it. Enjoy!
Season of the Witch – movie review
Mr. Blood continues his series of film reviews, in which he tells what he thought of the film but also examines it for possible Role-playing game ideas. This week’s film: Season of the Witch.
Updates, late 2010
Just some quick notes on what’s happening in our world.
• One Sunday in October, we shot some footage for a series of web shorts we’re working on. Several of our friends from the Chicago theatre world came by to act for us. My brother Tim Griffin directed, and Mr. Blood is hard at work editing it all down. We hope to release it on our YouTube channel early in 2011.
• I’m going into tech this week for Kid Simple at Oakton Community College. This is my first live/foley show since 2003’s Deadworry, and it’s been fun and very challenging. My foley operator Phil Freeman is doing a great job with the enormous number of sound cues, and has constructed some fantastic sound rigs for the show. Kid Simple opens Dec. 2 and runs until Dec. 12.
• Right after I open Kid Simple I’m going straight into tech for Moraine Valley Community College’s One Man Christmas Carol, adapted and directed by Tommy Hensel. Tim Griffin and June Eubanks were in the studio last week to record the narration for the show, and I was fortunate enough to get the fantastic Rebecca Brooke M to come in and play fiddle for the Fezziwig party scene. One Man Christmas Carol will have one public performance on Sunday, December 12.
• And right after that –well, during all that, actually—I am diving into sound design and music work for Bohemian Theatre’s production of The Elephant Man, directed by June Eubanks. The Elephant Man opens opens January 7, 2011 at Theatre Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640.
• re: Alice, the adaption of Alice In Wonderland that my brother Tim Griffin wrote and world-premiered in 2004 is being produced again in downstate Illinois. I’m currently working with the director to provide him with my original sound design and music from the 2004 production for this new staging. It’s very exciting to see this show go up again.
We’ll have some Toxic Bag product updates and a few other announcements soon, but in the meantime, have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Toxic Bag Productions 