A Night on the Town - Future Tales and City Tiles

Here is the next part in Bart Blast's adventure, introducing you to Future Tales, one of the newest games from Two Hour Wargames.  In this scene, Bart Blast and his robotic friend, YM-3, are searching a town for the next clue in their quest to find an ancient artifact of wisdom.

For this scene, I'm using another upcoming item from THW; City Titles!  These are large square tiles with buildings that can be arranged any way that you please to form towns and cities.  In addition, Counters are included with characters of various types to fit all kinds of sci fi games.

Above are the tiles arranged to form a town for my game.  The bottom left tile is a guide listing building types.  Although future Tales includes rules for determining building types, I'm using this guide for this one scene.

For the scene, Bart and YM-3 start in the bottom right title and must travel to the top left one.

The pink die represents their goal while the white dice represent PEF's (or Possible Enemy Forces).

I made my own counters for Bart Blast and YM-3.

Knowing this is not the best part of town, Bart and YM-3 quickly head through the street, searching for the apartment of a known scholar of artifacts.

They don't see anything thus far, but when they step around the corner, the PEF resolves.

It is an alien about waist-high who is smuggling supplies to another part of the town.  Since neither is a threat to the other, Bart and YM-3 wish the guy well and continue on their way.

However, when they round the corner, they hear voices and jump back.  It seems that one of the PEF's moved to join the other in this square, and now I'll be resolving both at the same time.

The first PEF resolves as another short alien and two humans with the alien being a pilot and the humans being a pilot and Noble.  The other PEF resolves as two robot thugs (The robot counters are not part of the game; I just found them online and added them to my game).

Since the details are left up to me, I decided that the noble is a local singer and the two pilots are his drivers.  The robots are trying to hold them up.  Deciding it's the right thing to do (and the groups are blocking their path), Bart and YM-3 jump in and attack, blasting the robots to bits before they can react.

The singer thanks the two and admits that he told his drivers to push his vehicle to make it home quickly from a concert.  Unfortunately, it ran out of fuel, and he led the two through what he thoughts was a shortcut.  When asked about the apartment, they pointed to the north and again thanked the two.

With that little adventure out of the way, Bart and YM-3 move on.

Entering the final tile, I roll for the PEF but it doesn't resolve.  However, when they enter the building I roll for a Defining Moment (These happen sometimes when moving through buildings) and one resolves.

I decided a map wasn't necessary for the inside of a building (That's compeltely optional on the player's part.) and just used a blank sheet of paper.

The Defining Moment resolves as two physic aliens from the academic field.  I decided they are researchers conducting their own studies.  After some questioning, they pointed to the apartment of their colleague, and our two heroes continued to the end of their mission.

Before I could reach it though, I roll a Terrain Obstacle.  Unfortunately, the door is locked, and before we could ask, one of the researchers turned and said, "No, we do not have the key."  Making a Physical Challenge, Bart manages to force the door, and the two enter the room.

To get the clue, the two must now solve a Puzzle.

The room is mostly empty, but Bart found an odd device on the counter.  "This is clunky for a communicator," he says as he studied it.  "And it's connected to this larger box."  Turning it over, he showed it to his companion.  "It looks like a communicator, but the screen ain't working."

Rolling up to it, YM-3 examinied it.  "When ancient humans first created communicators, they only used them for conversation."

"Only for conversation?"  Bart shook his head in wonder.  "No external access?  No ethereal-net?  How did these barbarians survive?"

YM-3 turned to the box connected to the communicator.  "I believe this device recorded messages to those who could not answer."

(Bart attempted the challenge but failed.)

"Maybe someone left a message."  He leaned closer to the device.  "Communicator, play back messages."  Nothing happened.  "Communicator, play back messages!"

(YM-3 attempted the challenge and succeeded.)

Pausing for a moment, YM-3 came to a conclusion.  "Since this device lacks electronics, I believe you must press the buttons for it to work."  He pressed a few buttons and it began playing.

"This is Professor Oslo.  While I have concluded that the artifact is located in the former human solar system, I am afraid my memory is not what it used to be.  I have sent my data to those researchers aboard the space station Harlan so they can analyze it and with hope come to a conclusion."

Pressing another button, YM-3 caused rectangular object to appear from the device.  "This is a cassette, which ancient humans used to store communications."

Bart snorted.  "It's huge, how much is on it?"

"Just that message.  Humans quickly learned to improve the storage of information, but at the time, this was the peek of their technology."

"Talk about the dark ages!"  Bart thought for a moment.  "Hey, I have some buddies on the Harlan.  Let's go pay them a visit!"

"Very well," the robot replied.  "I will arrange to find us transportation."

Next time, Bart Blast and YM-3 travel through space to the Harlan, and learn the hard way that someone else is searching for the artifact!

An entire game board that fits in a Zip-Loc bag!

City Tiles and Future Tales, both coming soon from Two Hour Wargames!  Keep your eyes open for more news!