SNOWS AVAILABLE IN PRINT
As of this week, our latest Call of Cthulhu adventure, Snows of an Early Winter, is now available in print format. Your friendly local game store can order it from any of the major distributors, or you can get yourself a copy through the Studio 2 online store. Of course, the PDF version remains available in all the usual places.

It’s always exciting to get a new book onto store shelves … but we haven’t seen physical copies ourselves yet. So drop us a note if you happen to see it (or, better yet, buy it) at your local store. We love those kinds of anecdotes.

RECENT PATHFINDER PDFs
We’ve published three new Pathfinder compatible PDF products since the last news round-up. So just in case you missed the individual release announcements, you might want to have a look at:

The Genius Guide to Ice Magic–New spells and class options designed to help spellcasters who want to focus on the magic of ice and cold.

The Genius Guide to the Death Mage–A new arcane spellcasting class that focuses on powers drawn from the dead, dying, and undead. Death mages are not just specialist wizards or variant sorcerers, but an entirely new kind of arcane spellcaster with different types of powers and a unique spell list.

The Genius Guide to Feats of Subterfuge–A collection of feats that provide new alternatives to characters who use duplicity and deception to make their ways through the world, including exactly zero feats that add a +2 bonus to a pair of skills

They’re all available at Paizo, DriveThru, and RPGNow.

GAMERS HELP HAITI
In the wake of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti earlier this month, OneBookshelf.com organized a fund-raising effort to support Doctors Without Borders in their work to help those affected. They put together a Gamers Help Haiti Bundle where for a $20 donation (ALL of which goes to Doctors Without Borders) you get a thank you gift of about $1,500 worth of gaming PDFs. An incredible array of game publishers donated products to the cause, and Super Genius Games is proud to be counted among them, our additions to the bundle being Strike Force 7–Savaged! and Loot 4 Less, vol. 1: Arms and Armor.

The bundle is only going to be available during the month of January, so there’s just a couple of days left to take advantage of it. But even if you miss out, please DO consider donating whatever you can spare to this very worthy cause.

GOOD REVIEWS
It’s been very heartening to see reviews begin to come in for our Pathfinder compatible products, and even more gratifying to note that they are generally very positive. If you don’t think that reading phrases like “the Genius Guide series keeps getting better and better” makes a publisher’s day, you’re woefully mistaken.

We spend a lot of time and effort working at keeping quality as high as possible … but with a schedule that calls for at least one new product every week, there’s always a nagging fear that we won’t catch something in time. And, from time to time, we do find little errors that have gotten past our efforts … but the best part about PDF publishing is that we can make corrections to the file and users can then get updated versions for free. So the quality of the products only IMPROVES over time.

If ever you have a question about or think you’ve found an error in one of our products, you can contact us by posting a comment on the product-related thread on the Paizo.com message boards. We check those regularly and make them the site for official rules discussions. We’ll tell answer the questions AND inform you whenever we’re updating the file, so you’ll know a new version is available.

LET’S CHECK THE STANDINGS
Finally, Super Genius Games continues to make frequent appearances on the various available rankings of hot-selling items. We had three products featured on the January 15th edition of the RPG Countdown podcast … and we have it on good authority that you’ll hear our name again on the new show, which is due to be released in the next few days.

In the latest Paizo.com newsletter, our products make up seven of the top ten “Downloads from Other Companies,” and two of the remaining three are issues of Kobold Quarterly, the “small but fierce” magazine that is at the top of our reading list EVERY time a new issue hits the stands. Also in that newsletter, they announce that the print version of Snows of an Early Winter is available in the Paizo Store.

And, ever-changing though their lists are, over at Drive Thru RPG The Genius Guide to Ice Magic is #7 on the overall Hottest Small Press list, and we’ve got five of the top ten spots on the Hottest Pathfinder Products list.

So the year is starting off well, and we’ve still got big plans ahead. Thanks for coming with us this far, we hope you’ll think it’s worth staying along for the ride.

DUELING FOR PINK SLIPS
Our first product for 2010 was the latest in one of our most popular series … Loot 4 Less, vol. 3: Hot Rods. And despite some confusion that it might be a book about magical chariots, people seemed quite pleased with this collection of interesting and (most of all) inexpensive rods suitable for use in equipping characters beginning at 1st-level.

Rods are often overlooked just because the name is kinda weird, but they really are quite handy magic items. They don’t take up one of a character’s limited chakra, you can equip and wield them like weapons, and anyone can use them without needing a Use Magic Device check. And they do a crazy number of different things.

In fact, as I re-read the book the other day, I realized that I WANT to use one of the rods for my next character. So there’s your proof of quality … so good that the publisher wants to use it. Wait. No. That really doesn’t prove much, does it?

DON’T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT
Over the holiday break there were a slew of reviews posted for various SGG Call of Cthulhu
products. Besides the ones at the various PDF sales sites (which we greatly appreciate) you might also want to check out:

Dan Harms’s review of A Peculiar Pentad and Snows of an Early Winter on his blog.

Pookie’s review of Snows of an Early Winter on GameCryer.com.

Jon Hook’s review of The Cold Case of Robert Suydam on YogSothoth.com.

Daniel R. Robuchaud’s review of Murder of Crows on GenreReader.com.

We really do appreciate EVERY review we get, not to mention the comments and discussions on message boards. They are the clearest kind of feedback we can get … and we are ALWAYS interested in learning what we’ve been doing right and where we can improve for next time.

MODERN THINKING
Next, and I probably should have mentioned this sooner, we’re engaging in a bit of unscientific research on a potential product for SGG. Over on the Paizo.com message boards, there’s a thread asking people “How Much Do You Want A Pathfinder Modern Game?”

All the core members of Super Genius Games were involved in making or supporting the original d20 Modern game, and we have a notion in our heads that the world might just be ready for a new version, one that did for d20 Modern what Pathfinder did for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. In fact, our thought at the moment is to use Pathfinder as our jumping off point. Of course, such a project is much too big for us to undertake without some kind of financial support … so we’re thinking about putting it out to the world as a patronage project.

If such a thing is of interest to you, please drop by the thread and put your two-cents worth in. We’re in the purely information-gathering stage at this point … but we’re also starting to make plans for striking out into stage 2. So now is the time to get your thoughts heard before any real decisions have been made at all.

COMING SOON
Finally, we heard this week that physical copies of Snows of an Early Winter have arrived from the printer. That means that they should go out to distributors very soon. Between the winter weather and other uncontrollable factors, we don’t want to promise anything … but the book should be available at your friendly local gaming store by the end of the month. Of course, the best way to INSURE that you get it as quickly as possible is to ask your game store owner to check with his or her distributor.

Of course, we’ll continue putting out PDF products on a regular basis … and you can count on another Pathfinder product to hit the online sites in the middle of this week.

LOTS OF NEW PATHFINDER PRODUCTS
We released a bunch of new Pathfinder RPG compatible products in the final fortnight of 2009, and with all that holiday revelry and all you may have missed some of them. Just as a quick review, you may want to check out:

The Genius Guide to the Archon: A new base class that combines martial prowess with spellcasting powers. Not your average fighter/magic-user, the Archon has the all-new “rivenspell” ability that lets him literally shred spells apart and apply their arcane power to his combat actions.

Mythic Menagerie: Winter Ravagers: Our first monster book, this one themed toward arctic creatures with a holiday theme. Each one is fully detailed and comes with a stat-card and a cut-and-fold standee for you to bring to the gaming table.

The Genius Guide to Feats of Spellcasting: A collection of feats for spellcasters of all stripes to use to refine and enhance their magical capabilities. The really neat thing is that NONE of these are metamagic feats!

TOP OF THE POPS
Super Genius Games products have been showing up on a lot of best seller lists in the final weeks of the year, and that’s very gratifying. Rather than going back and revisiting them all, though, we’ll just stick to the two most recent.

On the current episode of RPG Countdown, three Super Genius Games products made the list. Our latest Call of Cthulhu product, Snows of an Early Winter, debuts at #9 … Loot 4 Less, vol. 1: Armor and Weapons is at #5 and stays on the countdown for the second show in a row … and its companion, Loot 4 Less, vol. 2: Pretty, Pretty Rings, joins it by debuting at #3.

But the completely mind-blowing news for us is that in this week’s latest Paizo.com newsletter, the Top Downloads From Other Companies list is completely dominated by Super Genius Games products. Of the ten listed, EIGHT of them are ours. Even now, we almost can scarcely believe it’s true … but every time we look at the list, it’s still 80% us. Simply stunning.

2010–THE YEAR OF THE SUPER GENIUS
Toward the end of 2009 Super Genius Games turned a corner when it comes to product schedule and visibility in the marketplace. With the addition of Owen K.C. Stephens to our staff, we’ve expanded our ability to put out high-quality material in a very timely manner. All of that leads to the very good question of what you can expect from us in the new year.

Pathfinder RPG: The biggest change in our business was late in 2009 when we began releasing PDF products that are compatible with the Pathfinder RPG from Paizo Publishing. Beginning in the middle of November, we released at least one product a week, and our goal is to continue with that schedule for all of 2010 while maintaining a high standard of quality in every product. That’s certainly a challenging task, but it’s one we feel up to.

Call of Cthulhu: After a strong start at the end of 2008, our schedule of officially licensed Call of Cthulhu material slowed to a trickle in the first half of 2009. However, beginning in October, we began releasing new products in the line and we plan to continue that in 2010. Currently in the works are the second in our After Lovecraft series, a linked pair of adventures set in the “Gaslight” era, and a stand-alone adventure set in the American Old West. We’re also hoping to do at least one more adventure set in the modern day, and we’re talking to some big name designers about giving us their take on the Mythos. Depending on how the stars align, we may get as many as six or eight products in this line out in 2010.

Savage Worlds: After the release of and warm reception to the PDF version of Strike Force 7—Savaged!, we’d hoped to get a print edition out before the end of the year. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but we DO expect to have that out sometime early in 2010. We’re also working on a very exciting follow-up project that we will announce at the same time the print edition launches. From that point on, you can expect a fairly steady stream of support for the line. Also, we’re currently at work on a second Savage Worlds campaign setting called Operation: Kaiju that we hope to launch at Gen Con. Look for more news on that as the summer draws near.

THANK YOU!
And finally, as we prepare to move boldly into the new year, we want to thank YOU, our friends and fans. Without you, we wouldn’t have anything, and we know it. Thank you VERY much for buying, reading, reviewing, and just generally talking about our products … and we hope we’ll remain worthy of you continuing to do so as the year rolls along. We’re trying to think up some nice ways we can show our thanks for concretely … and as we do, we’ll surely let you know.

In the meanwhile, may 2010 bring you much happiness and luck … and may all your crits be confirmed!

NEW RELEASES
Just when you were probably getting used to us having a product a week hit the market, we went and TRIPLED your expectations. This week we released two new Pathfinder products plus a new adventure for Call of Cthulhu. You can pick any of them up via Paizo, Drive Thru RPG, or RPGNow.

Loot 4 Less, vol. 2: Pretty, Pretty Rings: The second volume in our massively popular Loot 4 Less line features a collection of permanently enchanted magic rings, all of which cost no more than 2,500 gp. More ways to outfit your low level Pathfinder characters and make them feel more individualized and heroic even at 1st level.

The Forgotten Tomb of Felgar the Goblin King: The second of our One Night Stand adventures gives you everything you need for an evening of Pathfinder RPG fun — the adventure (of course), full-scale map tiles for the entire complex, GM reference material, and cut-and-tape standees for all the monsters.

Snows of an Early Winter: Our latest officially licensed Call of Cthulhu product, this time an adventure set in modern day New York. It’s the last week before an important city-wide election and strange things are starting to happen, not that most New Yorkers ever look up long enough to notice. Written by Lou Agresta (remember that name, you’ll be seeing MORE great things from Lou in the future, I assure you) this adventure is perfect for a couple of cozy winter nights around the gaming table investigating things that voters were not meant to know!

TOP OF THE POPS
There’s a really great podcast that comes out twice a month from Moonstew Productions, it’s called RPG Countdown and if you’re not listening to it, you really should be. We’ve been lucky enough to get a product or two onto the show in the past, but this week we were shocked to find out that FOUR of the top ten products were from the Super Genius catalog! This as the show is INCREASING the number of sources it uses to generate the list. Want to know the details? Swing by and check out this week’s show … and subscribe while you’re there. It really is a terrific listen, even when our books AREN’T in the mix.

Speaking of top ten lists, SGG again had four products on the Paizo.com “Top Downloads from Other Companies” review, two on Drive Thru RPG‘s Hottest Small Press list, and five in RPGNow‘s Hottest Pathfinder Products list.

LET’S REVIEW
Any publisher loves to see positive reviews of their products, and we’ve been lucky enough to have a good share of them over the past few weeks. (Check out the feedback section of the PDF sales sites and you’ll see.) But this week we had two very gratifying reviews from OUTSIDE sources.

First, FlamesRising.com posted a thoughtful review of After Lovecraft: The Cold Case of Robert Suydam.

Second, episode #126 of Game Geeks went up on YouTube, and it’s devoted to reviewing Strike Force 7–Savaged!. I have to admit that we knew in advance that this was coming … and we were a little nervous. Kurt Wiegel doesn’t pull any punches in his reviews … and as much as we love SF7, I know that our perceptions are a bit biased. It came as a great relief and provided a gush of pride to hear him say such overall positive things about it.

ATOMIC POWERED
Besides the mini-plugs for RPG Countdown, we also recorded an interview for the next episode of Atomic Array, due to be released on next Friday (that’s Christmas Day for those of you who don’t have a calendar handy). So when you’re stuffed full of turkey or ham or Chinese food or just your usual Friday meal … check it out nearly a full hour devoted
to Snows of an Early Winter and other Genius products.

MAY YOUR HOLIDAYS BE FILLED WITH GENIUS!
That’s it for this week. We’ve got more coming up next week including our usual Pathfinder goodness and a holiday-themed surprise. Check back if you need a break from all that family togetherness and holiday cheer.

And from all of us here at Super Genius Games, whatever holidays you call your own, may you and your loved ones have an especial time of peace, health, prosperity, and most of all happiness.

A Solid Block of Genius
With the release of the latest Paizo.com newsletter, we see that the our Pathfinder compatible PDF products have become a solid staple on their Top 10 Downloads From Other Companies list. This week three of the top ten slots were SGG products with Loot 4 Less, vol. 1 at #5, Kobold Death Maze at #6, and The Genius Guide to the Dragonrider #7. Yes, we had aa solid BLOCK of Genius there in the middle of the chart.

It’s very gratifying to see these products do so well at the home of the Pathfinder RPG, and we’re very thankful to the folks at Paizo for all their support for our newest line of products. Hopefully we can continue to put in strong showings there in the weeks to come.

All Over the Bookshelf
Meanwhile, over at the One Bookshelf group, we ALSO have been getting strong support. The Genius Guide to the Shadow Assassin is currently the #15 overall hot product at RPGNow.com, while over at DriveThruRPG it is #4 on the small press hot list. On that same list, Kobold Death Maze is #12 and Loot 4 Less, vol. 1 is #13. If you switch to JUST the Pathfinder products, SGG continues to shine with FOUR of the top 10 at each site!

TWO Pathfinder Products Next Week
Things are going so well that we’re going to have a little bit of a celebration this week and again release TWO Pathfinder compatible products. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but keep your eyes open for an extra dose of Super Genius in the week ahead.

Cthulhu Is About To Rise
And, lest you think that we’re ONLY working on Pathfinder products these days, we’re getting ready to release our next Official Call of Cthulhu product, too.

The PDF version of Snows of an Early Winter should be available for download next week some time, and it’s being sent to the printers at the same time … so look for the hard-copy version in stores early in 2010.

The Paizo Connection
Once again we have product in the Top Downloads From Other Companies list at Paizo.com. Loot 4 Less, vol. 1 is #8 on the weekly count down. But there’s more Genius info in that newsletter. There’s ALSO a link to an entry that appeared on Thursday at the Paizo blog … an entry where they gave a full-throated shout out to SGG and solid promotion for our products.

It feels GREAT to be recognized by the publisher of the game we’re supporting … and from people that I respect both personally and professionally. So, thanks to my friends and acquaintances at Paizo. We’re going to do our damnedest to make sure ALL of our Pathfinder compatible material is worthy of the example you’re setting.

RPG Countdown
RPG Countdown is a bi-weekly podcast that is for RPG products what American Top 40 is for pop music. Put together by the mad geniuses at Moonstew Studios (who also produce the Atomic Array and Open Design podcasts. You really should be listening to ALL of those!

Anyway, The Genius Guide to the Dragonrider managed to break onto this week’s show! You ALSO get to hear Owen K.C. Stephens talk about some of the ideas behind the Dragonrider class. Check it out!

Upcoming Stuff
We also spent a good deal of time this week working on upcoming projects, including Snows of an Early Winter, our next Call of Cthulhu adventure, which should be available by the end of the month. It’s a modern adventure, set in New York City during this year’s election cycle … and let me tell you, politics and the mythos make uncomfortably cozy bedfellows.

We also have been doing work on the upcoming print edition of Strike Force 7. Right now we’re mostly getting all the art and pre-press worries squared away and we hope to get the book onto store shelves early in the new year. THEN we’ll be able to start talking about a VERY exciting follow-on project we have in the works.

More than a little time was spent hashing out our plans for upcoming Pathfinder products. As I said above, the audience has been responding well to our offerings so far, and we have A LOT more that we plan to bring to market. We just want to make sure that we maintain our high standard of design excellence and broad-based fun.

Oh, and I spent a little bit of time noodling around with more preparatory work for Operation: Kaiju. So far my goal of getting that ready for release next summer still seems reasonable. I keep my fingers crossed that this will remain true.

That’s all from the halls of Super Genius Games. Look for more news AND products next week!

“We’re proud to have a proven professional like Owen join the team,” said Stan!, Creative Director of SGG. “Owen has been part of the OGL movement from the beginning and he not only writes great content, he also has a good head for rules and for what makes the game exciting. He’s a real triple threat.”

SGG is committed to providing fun, engaging, and useful content for the Pathfinder RPG. Over the next few weeks Owen will work his Oklahoman magic and soon Pathfinder fans can expect amazing content from Super Genius Games each week.

“I am pleased to finally be acknowledged as a Genius, a moment I have long known would eventually arrive,” said Owen about his new position. ”On a serious note, I’m really pleased to be part of what I see as a very strong team, and I’m really excited about the projects we have coming down the pike.”

About Super Genius Games
Super Genius Games is an imprint of OtherWorld Creations. Founded in Fall 2007, SGG is dedicated to publishing quality print and PDF products for a wide range of games and game systems.

Co-founders Hyrum Savage and Stan! between them have more than 24 years experience working professionally in the hobby games industry. They have done projects with and created products for Wizards of the Coast, Upper Deck Entertainment, TSR Inc., Paizo Publishing, Malhavoc Press, West End Games, Steve Jackson Games, The Game Mechanics, and many other industry-leading companies. Their work has been nominated for 10 major game industry awards.

*All book titles are TM and or © their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Steven Brown
760-216-6132
steven@stannex.com

In honor of the holiday Super Genius Games is proud to announce our first ever Halloween Sale! From now until November 2nd you can buy any of our Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, and Savage Worlds products at a significant discount! Click on the links below to take advantage of this special offer:

The Cold Case of Robert Suydam: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=64503&discount=43809

Midnight Harvest (Perfect for Halloween gaming!): http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=58565&discount=30770

Doom from Below: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=58821&filters=210_0_2100_0_0&discount=5846

Murder of Crows: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=57226&filters=210_0_2100_0_0&discount=67120

Strike Force 7 Savaged!: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63145&discount=16170

The Shaman: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=64629&discount=90114