Keyforge is a card game designed by the legendary creator of the hugely popular Magic the Gathering card game, Richard Garfield. While the two games have many similarities in structure and play style, Keyforge places an obvious attention to the ongoing issues that Magic faced in its earlier years and had to be addressed over and over again to get things running just right, such as balancing the decks which players use, and simplifying the order and resolution of actions. So, while Magic the Gathering is still going strong, and maintains the widely acknowledged position as the most popular card game in the world (outside of traditional playing card games of course), Magic has had an evolution over many years of tested play to get there, whereas with Keyforge the designers are trying to learn from the similar games which have come before, to try to anticipate these problems with the complexity in the rules and the balancing of cards and decks against each other, as new cards are continuously released. To do this, one of the main new approaches to the game's design, is changing how decks are built and played, making the decks unique and non-modifiable, and moving away from the norm in collectable card games where the wealthiest players can buy the best cards and have the distinct advantage. Here each deck is crafted by the developers and made to be balanced against other decks, and players can't chop and change cards within the deck; it is to be played as it was supplied. And since the designers are trying to anticipate balance issues as new cards come out as the game becomes older, they have built in a mechanic to balance stronger decks against weaker ones. It's an impressive amount of pre-planning and behind the scenes complexity going into the deck structure, to keep the game simple and fair to the players themselves, which is frankly an excellent idea. Other game mechanics see similarities to Magic, Hearthstone, and even Yu-Gi-Oh, so while keeping the game easy to get into and understand, as a player has probably played games with similar concepts before, it does feel that it's not entirely as original and a fresh new idea in card games, that the creators of Keyforge seem to be trying to present it as. The game itself comes out with a lot of story elements and lore, which is also likely something picked up from looking at Magic's history, which didn't really have too much of a story outside of the game when it all started, beyond just the explanation as to what the players were trying to achieve, but as the game progressed, its worlds and characters and lore took on a life of their own, and have given the game a much more immersive feel. The team behind Keyforge are evidently trying to built up the same level of in-depth back-story, right from its first release, Call of the Archons. In Keyforge, players take on the roles of mighty Archons (not dissimilar to Magic's Planeswalker concept), that amass powerful armies of followers and impressive artefacts of power, which they use to harvest Æmber in order to fashion keys which can unlock vaults of unimaginable knowledge and force to those that unlock their secrets. The Archons wander through the massive planet known as the Crucible in search of these vaults, and battling other Archons for the privilege of gaining access to them. The Crucible is a world unlike any other - a construction of countless other planets and realities, making it an amalgamation of creatures and monsters all with very different abilities and technologies and legacies (and also making it easy to add a limitless variety of new cards to the game as time goes on). The game is very easy to learn, and has a non-complicated turn order and list of card options, so that it is relatively straightforward to quickly run through the rules and jump into a game. I did find the game to be somewhat slow-moving though, in its application of utilizing new ways to use strategy and planning (many of which would have been incorporated into other games' deck structuring process), the game seems to take much slower than other similar games to really get going, and action is much more planned and deliberate than fast and chaotic like in many other games. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. It seems that the game sets players facing off against each other in a way that feels more like a board game, and a card game duel. All in all, Keyforge plays like a very well thought out and planned game, and that most of the bugs and kinks have been ironed out long before release, which these days, in electronic and even non-electronic gaming, is almost unheard of. I look forward to seeing how it develops over time, and if it remains so simple to understand yet strategic and balanced in its own way, or if it too succumbs to unanticipated complexities and ambiguity that have plagued so many of its predecessors in fantasy card games.

Archie and his friends Betty, Veronica, Jughead and the rest of the gang, have been around for what seems like forever. Having appeared in comics since 1941, the characters have encountered and experienced virtually every story scenario conceivable, from the early days when the stories were full of innocence and light-hearted fun, to the more recent tales of teenage angst and relationship dramas. They have even had crossover books with the band Kiss, the Marvel vigilante The Punisher, and even the homicidal alien hunter The Predator, to name but a few. So it was only a matter of time until Archie and his pals were going to find themselves facing the Zombie apocalypse in a comic story. The nice thing about Afterlife With Archie, as opposed to having Archie just do a crossover with another zombie story, is that this is truly an Archie book, in the sense that the characters are going about regular “Archie comic” things, and it not just being a case of having the characters thrust into an extreme situation without the usual context. In Afterlife With Archie, Archie and the girls are preparing for their Halloween school dance in the normally happy little town of Riverdale, and it would have been just another night of love feuds and teenage shenanigans, had Jughead and Sabrina not unwittingly started the zombie apocalypse, when Sabrina uses some dark magic that she had been forbade to use in order to help save Jughead’s precious dog. As the hordes of undead begin to overwhelm the unsuspecting town, Archie and a small group of survivors must pool their resources and put aside their differences and disagreements, if they are to be able to win this fight. While Afterlife With Archie is most certainly a horror book, with deliciously gruesome artwork, and a story packed with magic and mayhem, it seamlessly maintains the juvenile drama woven intricately into the plot and dialogue so uniquely indicative of an Archie tale, that at times the plague of terrors devastating the town seem like they are merely the catalyst which ignites the cesspool of problems that have been churning just below the surface of the peaceful little town for so long. But while a broken heart or bruised ego may have been the biggest trauma in the lives of the teenagers up until now, fighting for their very lives against this unspeakable nightmare will certainly scar the gang forever. Those that survive the experience, anyway. But as excellent as Afterlife With Archie is as both a brutal zombie horror tale as well as a deeply introspective look at the Archie characters and their relationships when posed with such an extreme and life threatening situation, where the books really shines is the story it tells between the lines. Without giving away too many spoilers, seeing things like the development of Jughead’s character (even as a zombie) to something closer to how he behaves in the TV show Riverdale than to how he normally was depicted in the comics. Or the way that the book insinuates the relationship between Cheryl and Jason Blossom is less than wholesome. And how the darker side of Sabrina’s family is represented, almost as a taste of things to come. Keeping in mind that Afterlife With Archie came out long before the first season of the TV show Riverdale or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina aired, the book seems to hint quite closely at the direction that many of the characters would take which was quite different to the ways they had been portrayed in the past, even though the setting is completely different. In summary, Afterlife with Archie is expertly written, and Francavilla's artwork is the perfect, if horrifying, compliment to the story, making this book a real page turner.

In one of the strangest news developments, actor Chris Rock, best known for various roles in comedy films as well as his stand-up comedy specials, will reportedly be reviving James Wan's Saw movie franchise with a new entry. According to Deadline, Chris Rock approached Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures detailing his idea for the next Saw film. "When Chris Rock came to us and described in chilling detail his fantastic vision that reimagines and spins off the world of the notorious Jigsaw Killer, we were all-in," said Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group chairman, Joe Drake. "Saw is one of the highest-grossing horror franchises of all-time, and it’s one of Lionsgate’s most successful film series. This upcoming film will still be as mind-bending and intense as all the previous Saw films. Chris conceived this idea, and it will be completely reverential to the legacy of the material while reinvigorating the brand with his wit, creative vision and passion for this classic horror franchise." Rock proclaimed, "I’ve been a fan of Saw since the first film in 2004. I am excited by the opportunity to take this to a really intense and twisted new place." Saw series producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules also backed Rock's new vision. "Chris wants to put his own spin on the Saw franchise in the way Eddie Murphy put a completely fresh perspective on buddy-cop films with 48 Hours. This new Saw is going to be an event film in the making for horror fans. It will have all of the twists and turns and hardcore layers that our fans expect directed by one of the masters of the craft, Darren Lynn Bousman. We can’t wait to get started." This next Saw movie will be co-written by Chris Rock along with Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg. Rock will also serve as an executive producer. Expect the film to arrive in cinemas on October 23, 2020.

Earlier this month, a few pieces of concept art snuck onto the internet from developer From Software, who are renowned for developing Bloodborne, Dark Souls and most recently, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The images were apparently showcased at a From Software panel at ZBrushMerge 2019. Artist Ryo Fujimaki teased some concept art: one showing a twisted mermaid, one showing a squid-like creature (seemingly looking like something H.P. Lovecraft would keep as a pet), another image showing a scaly wyvern-like creature, and the last one being a rough sketch of the aforementioned mermaid. Have a look at them below: As for what these images could mean, many have made the connection that we're looking at early conceptual designs for creatures in Bloodborne 2, the long-rumoured sequel to the PS4 exclusive hit. On the other side of the same coin, it may just appear to be unused designs that never made it into the first Bloodborne game or Dark Souls III. Fujimaki never explicitly stated what these concept images were for, but we wouldn't get our hopes up just yet that we're looking at a new game. If these do turn out to be true, then these might just be our first confirmations of their new project, or Bloodborne 2.