Book Review: Fantasy Mapmaker by Jared Blando

Fantasy Mapmaker: How to Draw RPG Cities for Gamers and Fans
by Jared Blando (743.87 Bla)

Throughout the 20 years that my Dungeons & Dragons gaming group regular got together to chart out our adventures in the land of K’Thyra, I used a lot of grid paper (box hexagon grids and standard 1/4″ scientific grid paper), to map out the world my players were moving through. Those players visited innumerable encampments, towns, and cities over the years. But never in those 20 years did I ever try to create anything as…artistic…as the fantasy maps that Jared Blando creates in this this marvelous fantasy art guide.

Blando takes us on an incredibly detailed journey through how to create fantasy maps of towns and cities in made-up gaming worlds. Using pen and ink, colored pencils, watercolors and more, he shows you how to create exquisite guides to communities of every size in faux medieval times. Everything from castles/forts to vineyards to harbors bristling with the masts of ships – to temples and churches and cliffside lighthouses. All in tiny, colorful detail. He explains the logic of how medieval towns were laid out (based on waterways and terrain).

If you are a Role Playing Game enthusiast, and are the DM (Dungeon Master) for your campaign, AND you have even the slightest artistic skills, this book will show you how to provide your players with highly-realistic geographical guidelines on their adventures.

[Check out the online history of Scott’s K’Thyra gaming group (1983-2003) — they used D&D rules versions 1 and 2 during their active sessions, but there was a lot of material pulled from the pop culture realm (TV shows and comic books), and a lot of science fiction concepts that came to life in their adventures.]

[ official Jared Blando web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Ristar in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection

Ristar in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection
[Video Game Sonic’s] 

This is a bright colorful game featuring a little guy in the shape of a star, named Ristar. This was originally on the Sega Genesis in 1995; however you can still play it without a Genesis on Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection available on PS3 and Xbox, which comes with a multitude of other games. Ristar is a 2D platform style game set on other planets, whose leaders have been mind controlled by an evil space pirate. What I found a bit weird about it was that Ristar has a grab ability and his arms are sort of stretchy so you can grab onto things and propel yourself in multiple directions or maybe forced to grab on to object above you to avoid spikes and other hazards. This took me a little getting used to but there is something like that in every game. This is also how he attacks; grab an enemy, pull it toward you and pretty much head-butt it, which is amusing. I had played Sega Genesis back in the 1990’s but did not know about this one till fairly recently, and because of this it had a nice old and new feel to it. Overall it’s a really fun game and I would suggest it to other players who enjoy 2D platformers.

[ Ristar on Wikipedia ] | [ Ristar on Sega gaming Wiki ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you played this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!