Specimen Print on Demand Cards!

The captain and his card.

We’re tremendously excited to announce that we’ve set up all 122 cards for the game as a Print-on-Demand product, available from DriveThruRPG.com. Now instead of printing out, cutting out and pasting together all those cards, you can have a professionally printed deck delivered straight to your mailbox (You will still need to print out and assemble the map, counters and screen, but this does save you an awful lot of work).

The Print-on-Demand decks cost $9.99 + shipping. The Specimen print and play download costs $9.99 from Drivethru and $9.00 from Toxicbag.com.

 

25 attribute cards

7 Character cards

45 Crew strategy cards

45 Monster strategy cards

Print-on-Demand card set from DriveThruRPG

Science Fiction toolkit

You’ve crafted your universe and created the PCs. Everything is in place to begin your epic RPG Campaign for galactic domination. All that’s left is to add that final element: sound. Toxic Bag’s Science Fiction Toolkit gives you the audio building blocks to help create worlds that, before now, the players had only imagined. Designed for use with any RPG system, the toolkit will help make your sci-fi games better.

Over 45 minutes of Sci-Fi Sounds!

Tracks Include:
Sci-Fi Battle *
Jump to Lightspeed ¥
Time Machine Interior (10 minute ambience) ¥
Self-Destruct Sequence ¥
Cyberspace (10 minute ambience) ¥
Starship Bridge (10 minute ambience) †
Star Cruiser Rumble (10 minute ambience) †
Red Alert (6 minute effect) †
GM Soundpack: Blasters & Deflector Shields (click for description)

* Previously available on the Battles Collection
¥ Previously available on the Strange Places Collection – remastered for this set
† New Sound

 

The Science Fiction Toolkit is available from toxicbag.com and DrivethruRPG.com.

More SPECIMEN: podcasts and videos

I may have mentioned it before, but we’ve started a monthly podcast to talk about sound effects stuff, genre stuff, movies, etc. And we also talk a lot about our new board game. This month we continue a conversation we started last month with Eric Van Tassell and Alan Vuchichevich, who are two of the actors in the game. They’ve also done loads of playtesting on Specimen and have some great insights on how to play the Specimen and how to play the crew. You can get all of our podcasts at toxicbagpodcast.wordpress.com/ or through iTunes.

 

We’ve also started putting up how-to strategy videos about Specimen at the Specimen page. The most recent addition deals with the Tracking units and can be seen here.

Game Masters iPad app update

We’re pleased to announce that version 2.3 of our Game Masters Collection app for the iPad is now available at the Apple Store.  The new version includes in-app purchase access to several of our recent soundpacks, including:

 

Eldritch Horror: Cult Ceremonies is a collection of 9 different mystical cult ceremonies. Now you can let your players hear that pesky cult eagerly summoning their icky dark lord to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world.

Fantasy: Dragons: a collection of 20 growls, hisses, roars and breath attacks. Now you can let your players hear one of the most iconic creatures of the fantasy genre!

Fantasy: Traps: a collection of eleven sinister traps for you to install into you perilous fantasy campaigns.

Horror #2 – EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomena. These mysterious recordings are believed by some to represent the voices of the dead. Now Toxic Bag introduces a collection of creepy EVP phrases for you to use in your modern horror game.

Sci-Fi: Blasters & Deflector Shields: a collection of 16 energy weapons and shields for you to equip your party as they enter your Galactic Sci-Fi Operas.

 

Changes and fixes –
Optimized for iOS 7.
Changed the iPhone main view to a tableview menu.
Fixed scrubber to resize properly after rotating.
Resized main tableview icons to line up the text.
Cleaned up the startup screens.
Cleaned up actions when app goes into background.
Added a microphone access request for iOS 7 devices.

 

The Game Masters app is a free download; additional sounds are available via in-app purchase.

Free Sound for April: Matter Transporter

Our Free Sound for April is a Matter Transporter that sounds like it came from one of those spaceships we saw on TV in the 1950s and 60s. If you’re playing a retro sci-fi game, this might be the thing for you!

 

Get the Matter Transporter sound here.

 

The Matter Transporter. A quick flash of energy into which a person vanishes, to (hopefully) appear elsewhere in a fraction of a second. Invented in the mid-twentieth century on Earth to avoid having to film costly spaceship landing sequences, it quickly became a staple of televised science fiction from Star Trek to Doctor Who. This month’s Free Sound is not a precise recreation of either the Enterprise’s transporter or the Trans-Mat of Doctor Who fame, but rather calls to mind the early electronic sound techniques of the 1950s and 60s. If your game has a whimsical element to it, or if it’s set in a “Forbidden Planet”-type future, this sound will definitely come in handy!

This sound can also be used for:
laser guns
disintegrations
force-field impacts
super-agile battle robots that can move faster than the eye can see
magic spells cast by cartoon wizards

New Podcast: Zombies and more Zombies!

Be sure to check out our new podcast, where we talk about our new Zombie stuff, announce the new Specimen game board design, and discuss the new crop of horror TV shows for the fall.

Like the podcast and want to always be up to date? You can grab the RSS Feed here!

May Projects update

Lots going on in Toxic Bag Land lately! We’ve completely revamped toxicbag.com, making it easier to find the sounds you need for your game. Individual track downloads will be enabled soon.

Reviewer Megan R, on DrivethruRPG.com, gave the “Ghost in the Graveyard” soundtrack 5 out of 5 stars! The review is posted on the page for the Lobby Card Set (which can be purchased separately):

A delightful conceit… after carefully creating a completely fictitious movie soundtrack so that you can generate the right background and moon for your horror game without distracting players who have seen whatever horror movie whose soundtrack you might otherwise be using…

They give you some movie posters and adverts for the fictitious movie that the soundtrack was purportedly written for!

Even before I’ve finished listening to the soundtrack – and I tend to use music as background and inspiration when WRITING rather than playing games – this has spawned a plot.

Thanks Megan!

In theater sound-design news, I just wrapped up a production of “Richard III” and am now working on a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Lotta Shakespeare this year!

We’ve also been working on audio post-production for our friend Eric Neal’s short film, “Fate Accompli.” We did a day of foley work last week and a temp mix for a Friday night screening of the film in Chicago.

We’re also a few days away from the “Specimen” photo shoot, which will provide many of the images for the game. Costumes and props are all looking spectacular, and we’re very excited about it. We’ll be posting some of those shots early next week, and hopefully have some other news as well (I can say no more).

Stay tuned!

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!

Toxic Bag at Rock-Con

This weekend, Nov. 4-6, Toxic Bag will be at Rock-Con in Rockford, Illinois. We’ll be selling our critically-acclaimed sound effects for role playing games as well as running demos of our new board game, Space Monster.

We hope to see you there!

Joe and Steve

New Soundpack: Traps!

This month’s soundpack is a great collection of vicious traps for your Fantasy campaigns. The Fantasy: Traps soundpack includes 11 trap sounds:

• Room Trap – Stone Walls Compact: Sealed inside a stone chamber, the walls begin inching closer. One thing is clear–the party is going to be a lot taller.
• Room Trap – Short fall: A classic trap door leading to a nine foot drop onto a hard stone floor.
• Room Trap – Short fall into spike pit: This trap opens above a bunch of spikes…shish kebab anyone?
• Room Trap – Fall into liquid: This trap starts with a 35 foot drop into a body of liquid. What kind of liquid and what’s in it, we leave up to you…and say, is that a giant fin???
• Room Trap – Fall into Monster pit: As if falling 9 feet and landing in a heap wasn’t bad enough, now there is a large beastie joining the party for lunch. Ooops! We meant to say “eating” instead of “joining.”
• Room Trap – Ceiling collapses: First you stick them in a dank, dark cave. Second, you seal the tunnel exit. And C, now it appears that the ceiling is coming down! Talk about a lousy afternoon.
• Chest Trap – Acid spray: The good news is, the party just found a treasure chest. The bad news is, that “runny” nose the elf just got is not from a cold…
• Floor Trap – Crossbow bolt fired: A stone pressure plate fires a crossbow bolt into the room. Perfect for temple defense!
• Floor Trap – Multiple Crossbow bolts fired: The same as above, but with many, many bolts being fired. Just let them try to steal the idol now!
• Trap Trigger – Stone: Just like it says – a stone trigger you can use for any trap you want!
• Trap Trigger – Latch: Same as the stone trigger, but this time it’s a metal latch. Enjoy!

In usual Toxic Bag fashion, we’ve left off the “result” part of many of these traps. Who knows? Your players might just get out of them alive! Fantasy: Traps is available now at DriveThruRPG for 99¢.

Also, be sure to grab our Free Sound for this month. It’s another nasty Trap – the Bottomless pit!