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Magic — The Anthro-Folk

Recently there was a major announcement from the world Magic: The Gathering, the famous fantasy card game. “Welcome to Valley, the bucolic and vibrant home to the animalfolk of Bloomburrow, Magic‘s first all-animal plane. It’s a place where big adventures await even the smallest who are bold, inquisitive, and heroic, while those with more homespun and peaceable yearnings can enjoy the tranquil life… But peace is endangered in Valley as the delicate balance of nature is threatened, and the elemental calamity beasts and the Great-Night Owl imperil the lives of its inhabitants… The animalfolk will have to band together to defend their homes. Led by Mabel, a mousefolk mother and reluctant hero, a party will strike out to investigate what has befallen a neighboring town. Along the way, they’ll be joined by a remarkable companion from a faraway land.” Keep up with the Wizards of the Coast to find out more. As usual with Magic: The Gathering, the artwork for Bloomburrow is absolutely gorgeous.


image c. 2024 Wizards of the Coast

Klonoa's new remake is coming out!

Your rating: None Average: 5 (2 votes)

Klonoa is a franchise by Bandai Namco that got its first release in 1997 for the PlayStation. Having reached great sales in the Japanese market, it got modest earnings in the west, large enough to approve a sequel, Klonoa 2, for the PlayStation 2. Both games got great reviews, and are platforming classics, but unfortunately diminishing sales killed the franchise, with one last re-release of the first game back in 2008 for the Wii.

The franchise is now being revived after all these years with a new remake of Klonoa 1+2, with great care and respect for the source material. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series comes out July 8th for PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Steam (PC). Consoles get a physical release in Europe and Japan, with US receiving digital releases only.

'Savage Species': that time Wizards of the Coast called furries a bunch of jackasses

Your rating: None Average: 2.6 (7 votes)

Savage Species Onager In the far-off time of 2003, Wizards of the Coast published an expansion to the rules of its popular Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game known as Savage Species. It’s purpose was to allow players to choose one of the many monsters the game featured as a playable race and still allow them to play with players sticking with one of the Player’s Handbook pre-approved playable races, who were either human or basically humans, just with pointy ears or a shorter build than normal.

The appeal to furries is obvious. The Monster Manual contained various anthropomorphic animal races, including minotaurs, gnolls, kobolds and many others that furries would almost rather certainly play than just vanilla humans and the human adjacent. In addition, tucked into the third appendix of Savage Species was added a new “creature template”, which could be added to existing creatures, specifically animals. That template was known as “anthropomorphic animal.”

Unfortunately, this was the far off time of 2003, and the reputation of the furry fandom among other geek cultures was not good. Wizards of the Coast didn’t mind if furries wanted to buy their expensive add-on books, but they also wanted to make sure to signal to all the other non-furry geeks this wasn’t a furry book and also they didn’t really like furries either. They did this with the selection of the example animal that the template was applied to: a donkey, which we’ve covered the symbolism of elsewhere.

Game review: 'Tails Noir', formerly 'Backbone' (2021)

Your rating: None Average: 3.6 (8 votes)

Tails Noir (formerly named Backbone; trailer) is a 2D adventure game by EggNut, released on Steam on June 8, 2021, after a five-year development period. I contributed to their Kickstarter.

The style is heavily influenced by noir detective stories, with a dash of science-fiction. Set in a dystopian Vancouver, British Columbia, all the characters are anthropomorphic mammals. You play as Howard Lotor, a raccoon private investigator, trying to find evidence of an affair. To say things do not go as planned would be a vast understatement.

The game is surprisingly short, you can finish it in around four to five hours. After playing it, it felt like it had so much potential, but didn't deliver as much as it could have.

"At least it looks good" - reviews decry furry action RPG Biomutant's frustrations

Your rating: None Average: 4 (3 votes)

'Biomutant' mechanical grasshopper Biomutant reviews are out! It's… mediocre. Not great, not terrible:
Eurogamer - GamesRadar - PC Gamer - Game Informer - Rock Paper Shotgun

Perhaps this isn't all that surprising for a relatively new and small development team. But it's a bit of a disappointment after hype sparked by a trailer that dropped in 2017.

Plot-wise, it seems exposition, rather than agency, rules the day. World Tree RPG this is not. Still, it may be your bag if you thought Ratchet & Clank lacked in species — or 'Wung-fu'.

Furry computer games 2021: what have you been playing?

Your rating: None Average: 3.7 (18 votes)

Flayrah occasionally posts individual reviews of computer games, but it's been a while since we've had a more general discussion. Time to make a new list!

This list of games is definitely not going to be comprehensive. The Roblox and VR scenes are largely a mystery to me, although I know there's been an ongoing concern about avatars being ripped in VRChat. I won't be covering furry mods for existing games. Some things have been left out because there are simply too many to choose from, like Fortnite skins and a lot of visual novels. Not to mention all the games with animal characters in the background, like I Am Dead and Shovel Knight.

So after some renewed delving into the topic, I've put together a selection of games with animal characters that have come out in the past couple of years, as well as possible upcoming releases. Leave a comment if you have any recommendations - or warnings!

Retro game review: 'Toonstruck' (1996)

Your rating: None Average: 4.1 (9 votes)

No one sits in an electric chair during the game. Toonstruck is a 1996 third-person point-and-click adventure game, still available on modern PCs! It's a celebration of cartoon humor, and you can tell a lot of love and effort went into making it. Toony animal side-characters are everywhere.

Originally conceived of in 1993 as a children's game, a decision was made to gear it towards adults instead. Officially it's rated 'T' (Teens) for "Comic mischief, Mild animated violence" - but there is some very adult humor you won't see coming. Virgin Interactive, who made the game, spent over $8 million on it. Some of this was wasted due to changing the engine during development. Otherwise they were able to pay well for its programming, animation and dialog, with (mostly) little executive interference.

The main character of Toonstruck is a burnt-out artist named Drew Blanc, played by Christopher Lloyd, who's been stuck animating The Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show for ten years. When his boss (played by Ben Stein) demands even more rabbits, so he can keep milking the franchise as Fluffy & Friends, Drew despairs - only to find himself accidentally sucked into a cartoon world. His only hope of escape relies on completing a quest to help the locals.

Card game with custom fursonas: 'Secret Names [Furry Edition]'

Your rating: None Average: 3.2 (19 votes)

Secret Names, furry edition

Secret Names - Furry Edition
is a Indiegogo-funded card game in which two teams try to pick words from hints to their meanings — many related to furry culture. Gameplay is similar to that of Vlaada Chvátil's Codenames, but with a distinctive furry style and artwork.

Editor's Note: The article contains promotion of content created by the article's author.

Review: 'Crash Bandicoot 4': It's About Freakin' Time!

Your rating: None Average: 3.5 (11 votes)

Crash Bandicoot 4 poster
Few popular furry mascots remain now in the video game industry for triple-A games. And, as those with similar sensibilities know, furry makes everything better. So when I stumbled upon the trailer for the new Crash Bandicoot 4, with sick track "The Rockafeller Skank" by Fatboy Slim, I could only drool and get HYPED. Yes, I'm a 90s kids. Yes, I love Bandicoot. Take my money!

Game review: 'Rikki & Vikki', puzzle solvers

Your rating: None Average: 3.9 (17 votes)

Rikki & Vikki is a retro puzzle platformer released in December 2018 by PenguiNet. Programmed from scratch to be compatible with the Atari 7800, it's also out on PC with controller support.

The game has single player & couch co-op modes; Steam's version also includes co-op remote play.


Its story is fairly simple. Two foxy parents (Rikki & Vikki) get an unexpected visit from the Misery Dragon (demon lord of inconvenience), who steals their kids, forcing them to go through 100 different levels down to the center of the earth to rescue them. What ensues from then onward is an arcade-style gameplay that looks similar to Bubble Bobble (1986), but plays more like Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2004). In some instances, the puzzle-solving is combined with quick action, with a challenging difficulty level very much in line with Cuphead (2017) and older-style arcade games.

Neopets to get animated series in 2021

Your rating: None Average: 4.2 (6 votes)

Reporting from Verve indicates that Neopets will be releasing an animated series in 2021. Neopets is known for its Flash based entertainment that held its own with other such animal care based franchises of the 1990s such as Pokemon, Digimon, or Tamagochi.

The owning company JumpStart, who bought it from Viacom in 2014, hopes to use this as a way to refresh interest in the pet based franchise at a time where they are shifting their Flash based interface before most browsers discontinue support for Flash applications by the end of this year.

Game review: Ratropolis, real-time strategy with deckbuilding

Your rating: None Average: 4 (5 votes)

Ratropolis main screen
Released in November 2019, Cassel GamesRatropolis sets players in the role of the leader of a post-apocalyptic rat society, attempting to rebuild their once-great civilization after scientific experiments caused its collapse. But in order to grow, the new settlement must defend itself - first from mutated rats that caused the apocalypse, then as the settlement grows, from predators. The goal is to survive 30 waves of enemies using cards that provide an array of tactics, and with the leader’s special ability.
 

'Barkham Horror' expansion is for the dogs – and their fans

Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (8 votes)

Arkham Horror card game developer Fantasy Flight Games has turned an April Fools suggestion into reality with new scenario Barkham Horror: The Meddling of Meowlathotep. [tip: Shazardek]

'Barkham Horror' investigators Bark Harrigan, Jacqueline Canine, Kate Winthpup, 'Skidds' O'Drool and Duke

New investigators Kate Winthpup, Bark Harrigan, Jacqueline Canine, 'Skidds' O'Drool and Duke have "picked up the scent of something big" and "must stop Meowlathotep, the Prowling Chaos, Meowsenger of the Outer Feline Gods, who is terrorizing the city of Barkham".

The dog-vs-cat-themed product, first teased on April 1 (of course) as The Dogwitch Legacy was encouraged by support in the game's forums, especially after cats became allies in The Dream-Eaters expansion pack. Like all expansions, the core Arkham Horror set is required to play.

How Shere Kahn ousted a furry tiger from the Jeopardy champion's tournament

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (10 votes)

Khaaaaaaaaan.jpgAs previously covered here on Flayrah, a furry known by his fursona name of Bucktown Tiger had made The Tournament of Champions on Jeopardy. He participated in the Thursday night quarterfinals game against some very heavy hitters. But little could he have known that his greatest enemy would not be the contestants before him that night, but a Final Jeopardy question that would be presented before the contestants on the following game Friday night.

A question whose answer was: “Who is Shere Khan?”

So how could this have happened where a furry fan, whose favorite animal species is the tiger, end up being torn up by the most infamous of all anthropomorphic tigers? Let’s break it down.

The tiger returns in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions

Your rating: None Average: 3.7 (10 votes)

Go Josh Go.jpgThe tiger claws come out this Thursday on Jeopardy as Bucktown returns to face his fellow winning players in this year’s Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. When we last covered the seven day winning streak, it was the winningest of the season. In the year and a half since that time, something called James Holzhouer happened, bringing in a brand new high risk strategy that literally turned the game on its head and winning 32 games before being stopped by one Emma Boettcher. Both of them will also be in this tournament.

The streak-stopping Emma will be facing off against the tiger from Arkansas on Thursday November 7th. However, the third contestant is also no push over, with Eric Backes having a 4 day win total of over $100,000 in his belt as well. JeopardyFan has this Thursday contest as the most hotly contested of the week; with Josh, Emma, and Eric all set with a near equal chance of winning. The site commentator Andy has called it a “Group of Death”, which basically means all three are were skilled enough to go deep into the tournament, but are facing off against one another quite early thus causing the early loss of one of them.