What a fantastic Gen Con.

So many things to talk about; so many cool products premiered by a host of companies; so many great people met; so many awesome games to play: it absolutely lived up to its title of “The Best Four Days In Gaming.”

At Gen Con 2010 Catalyst released a slew of new products, from the gorgeous full-color Sixth World Almanac exploring Shadowrun like never before, to Technical Readout: 3085 bringing a horde of new units to any BattleTech battlefield, with spot lights on conventional infantry and the dramatic return of Land-Air BattleMechs.

In addition to our fantastic location at the main doors, it was great to see Geek Chic holding our left flank with their amazing tables we drooled over all 4 days (thanks for the loan of two tables to run demos!).

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Leviathans is a steampunk game that simulates combat between warships that have taken to the air in an alternate history 1910. The king leviathans, battleships, are the largest vessels. Maneuvering in support are light cruisers, destroyers and other vessels. Will you captain your fleet for king and country, expanding your nation’s power and becoming legend? Or will you fall from the sky, forgotten?

You determine the outcome!

Spring 2010 will see the publication of this much anticipated box set game. The Leviathans Core Box Set will include the following:

• 3 rulebooks to ease players from the quick-start rules all the way to enhanced play for endless fun.
• 8 high-quality plastic miniatures representing ships from the British and French fleets.
• 12 Ship Cards that expand a player’s fleet, including a battleship, two light cruisers and three destroyers.
• 12 full-color Recognition Cards that correspond to each Ship Card, including the ship’s service history on the back.
• Leviathans Primer that details the alternate history of Leviathans, the technology behind the great ships, the eight major air powers of 1910, along with minor powers, and the growing hot spots of conflict around the world.
• 2 novellas throwing you directly into the action of the universe.
• Templates to aide game play.
• 2 18″ x 22″ board-game quality maps, printed on both sides.
• 12 dice

Until then, however, the Lieutenant’s Manual is now available!

The Leviathans’ Lieutenant’s Manual is a 32-page PDF offering a complete introduction to the new, innovative Leviathans’ game system, including playing maps, ready-to-cut-out-and-use Ship Cards and counters. All a player needs to bring to the table are a few sets of polyhedral gaming dice (D4, D6, D8, D10 and D12s) and in minutes they’ll be scouring the skies at the helm of several thousand tons of war-forged metal looking for the tail-tale sign of enemy smoke on the horizon.

Lieutenant’s Manual: Quick-Start Rules PDF on Catalyst

Lieutenant’s Manual: Quick-Start Rules PDF on DriveThruRPG

In August 2009 Catalyst Game Labs pushed the boundaries of publishing as the first to simultaneously release a major role-playing game publication—Eclipse Phase—under Creative Commons and through the traditional distributions network.

Catalyst continues to push the boundaries of publishing as the first major publisher to release a miniatures game under Creative Commons with the first roll out of Leviathans’ books in the Lieutenant’s Manual. Additional PDF releases will occur in the coming weeks and months leading up the release of the box set game next spring.

While Leviathan’s is steampunk in flavor, no single definition covers the genre anymore; instead, it is a collage of concepts and ideas, even if the core remains the same. This type of “mix it and make it yours” mentality fits flawlessly with Creative Commons, allowing anyone that loves steampunk to take Leviathans and make it theirs in what ever way they desire.

If you receive this PDF from a friend who shared it in accordance with the Creative Commons license, and you like it, please support the cause by buying the PDF. This is still an experiment and we hope to make it work. If it does, the success of Leviathans—along with the growing success of Eclipse Phase—may very well affect the way all game companies go about publishing games in the future. So if you like this direction, we need your support!

Catalyst Game Labs had a great 2009 GTS experience and the Catalyst booth was constantly busy both days. Most importantly, however, is that all of the retailers stopping at the booth asked pertinent, intelligent questions and were expressing interest not only in the staples of BattleTech and Shadowrun but showed interest for everything that Catalyst Game Labs has to offer in the coming year.

Undoubtedly it was the coming release of Catalyst Game Labs’ casual game line (comprised of board and card games) that was the star of the show. Three card games—Paparazzi, High School Drama and Merchants (a Reiner Knizia game)—will be part of that launch, each with a fun, quick play style. The unique packaging for all three designs garnered a host of attention.

At the end of the day, however, Balance of Power, Catalyst Game Labs’ first casual board game, walked away with the most buzz. Set in the Napoleonic era, it has easy to learn rules. As several self-proclaimed “board game snobs” attending stated, “the depth of play for Balance of Power is subtle but huge, with a lot of strategy and great re-playability”. And if that weren’t enough, the map is an eye-catching, beautiful piece of graphic design; perfect for snagging new players’ attention at a table.

The digital proofs of the anniversary edition of Shadowrun Fourth Edition caught a lot of attention, as did the nearly three foot panoramic illustration of Seattle for the new Shadowrun Gamemaster screen found in the Runner’s Toolkit. The coming of a new series of linked adventures, and a deluxe full-color Seattle 2072 hardcover book also generated a lot of eager comments.

The massive stack of digital proofs that was Strategic Operations elicited a lot of retailer questions, mainly from their customers: where’s the book?!  Strategic Operations—along with all of Catalyst operations—ran afoul of the closing of WizKids and ended up stuck for several months. It’s been completely unstuck and the printer is hard at work on getting this one out. Talk of the 25 Years of Art & Fiction deluxe coffee table book, along with a 25th anniversary Introduction Box Set with new cover art and high quality board-game style playing maps in place of the current paper sheets also had retailers excited.

With two supporting products out for the CthulhuTech RPG (Vade Mecum and Dark Passions) and digital proofs of Damnation View—the third release beyond the core rulebook—for retailers to flip through, the game line is continuing to pick up speed and a lot of interest.

Catalyst Game Labs was also excited to talk about our new immersive universe and all-new roleplaying game, Eclipse Phase. This transhuman conspiracy and horror setting spiked a lot of interest, especially in the more unusual roleplaying aspects that bring a unique flavor to this hard science fiction RPG.

Leviathans—an alternate history miniatures game of air fleet battles set in 1910—also had a lot of retailers excited. While there were no game mechanics to show off, a folder with a dozen concept illustrations and a box cover illustration from Doug Chaffee got high marks across the board.

Catalyst would like to extend a giant round of thanks to all those retailers that swung by the booth and kept us so busy with your interest and superb questions. We hope to see you next year (as well as any that weren’t able to make it to our booth this year)!

In the coming days Catalyst Game Labs will release more in-depth reviews and information focused on various aspects of our game lines described in short above.