Pyramid Review
Battleforce Bravo: Wartime Adventure
Published by Deep7
Written and illustrated by Todd Downing
11-page PDF document; $3.95
The design philosophy behind Deep7's "1PG" or "one-page" game is to create a simple RPG with rules that a fit onto a single page and support the game with a number of scenarios that can each be played in a single evening. More specifically the rules are actually combined with the character sheet, so that onus is on the players to learn the rules as they create their characters, while the GM concentrates on running the adventure he has selected for that session. Finally, each 1PG game is electronically formatted as an Adobe Acrobat file and made available direct from the Deep7 website (www.deep7.com) for purchase and download. This all combines to keep the price down -- under $5 each. The question is, can an RPG that costs as little as $3.95 be any good, let alone fun?
Deep7 have released several games in this format, including the espionage themed Agent S.E.V.E.N., the space opera Star Legion, and the game of pulp action, Dime Heroes. All of these are based on the type of pop-culture genres we have seen in movies or on television, making the concepts and conventions central to each game easy to grasp and understand. Their latest release does exactly that and is in keeping with this year's trend in RPG genres. Battleforce Bravo is a World War II beer & pretzels RPG based upon the type of heroic all-action movies put out by Hollywood: Kelly's Heroes, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: December 7, 2001
Copyright © 2001 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.