Just like last year, it looks like most Arizona hobby retailers are giving Free RPG Day a pass — or, depending on whom you ask, were left out in the cold.
The event, an industry promotional effort that has much in common with the more well known Free Comic Book Day, only has one Arizona shop participating (so far): Imperial Outpost Games in the West Valley. That’s according to the event’s official participating retailer locator.
Last year, Samurai Comics was the only local venue.
This year, Free RPG Day is June 16, and …

This Monday, April 9, Ken Rolston will give the final lecture in the series “Video Games as a Force and Art Form: Teaching, Learning, and the Creative Economy” at 7:30 p.m. at Mesa Community College.
You can read more about Rolston and the lecture series here.
What you won’t find in the bio in my earlier post: Rolston served as roleplaying director for West End Games, Games Workshop and Avalon Hill.

Suddenty, I want to play some Dragon Warrior …

There are more changes to “Video Games as a Force and Art Form: Teaching, Learning, and the Creative Economy,” Mesa Community College’s lineup of video game lecturers.
Tonight (March 27, at 7:30 p.m.) USC interactive media professor and Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab director Tracy Fullerton will appear as planned, discussing “the playcentric game design process.”
Karl Stewart, who had originally been scheduled for a late February lecture on the evolution and branding of Tomb Raider vixen Lara Croft, and Ken Levine, who had been set for early March before the …

Think “Celebrity Poker” meets “Dinner for Five” and you’re ready to experience a new kind of web show that pairs notable celebs with must-play tabletop games.

LepreCon, Arizona’s annual sci-fi and fantasy convention emphasizing the role of art in the genres, returns April 6-8 at the Tempe Mission Palms.

The long-awaited Art of Video Games exhibition opened Friday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibit runs through September.

On Feb. 25, 2012, Arizona experienced its first annual Phoenix Vul-Con, the Southwest’s Premiere Strategy Gaming Convention. This was the place to be for those who love traditional gaming. There were numerous choices of board, card, miniature, RPG, and strategy games along with amazing custom made props made specifically for the event. If that’s not enough to convince you to go next year, there were also gorgeous girls dressed as characters from Paolo Parente’s DUST with custom made props and accessories for you to pose with AND thousands of dollars …

A look back at the Valley’s newest gaming convention.

Stephen Carpenter, ubergeek, sometime Nerdvana contributor and former events manager for Gamer’s Inn in Mesa, is one of the designer-writers of the Monster Commute Roleplaying Game in development by Steam Crow, an Arizona publishing house and quirky webcomic. Next week he gets to show off the fruit of his labors at an open playtest session 2 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, at The Game Depot, 3136 S. Mcclintock Drive No. 11 in Tempe.
Adventure-doom on the roads of a monster dystopia!
Wednesday March 7th, Stephen Carpenter will be play-testing the …