In the post-apocalyptic Junkyard, a mysterious religious order known only as the Church watches over the brutal competition between warring tribes as they vie to unify six territories and thereby gain access to Nirvana, the promised land. But the rules of the competition have changed, and the Junkyard has been thrown into chaos after its inhabitants are granted not only demonic transformation powers, but their first taste of human emotion. The Church demands that any tribe seeking entry to paradise must also deliver the strange girl named Sera to them. Serph and the other members of the Embryon struggle to keep Sera safe from enemies on all sides, all while striving to find whatever allies they can in order to beat the Church at their own game. Avatar Tuner, Vol. 2 continues the Quantum Devil Saga, a series inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei video games, which are widely popular in their native Japan and have gained a considerable following in the West. Translated into English for the first time, experience the story of Serph and his tribe as they fight not only to win, but to understand the supernatural forces that govern the Junkyard.

A critical look at how the Super Nintendo Entertainment System—and a resistance to innovation—took Nintendo from industry leadership to the margins of videogaming. This is a book about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that is not celebratory or self-congratulatory. Most other accounts declare the Super NES the undisputed victor of the “16-bit console wars” of 1989–1995. In this book, Dominic Arsenault reminds us that although the SNES was a strong platform filled with high-quality games, it was also the product of a short-sighted corporate vision focused on maintaining Nintendo’s market share and business model. This led the firm to fall from a dominant position during its golden age (dubbed by Arsenault the “ReNESsance”) with the NES to the margins of the industry with the Nintendo 64 and GameCube consoles. Arsenault argues that Nintendo’s conservative business strategies and resistance to innovation during the SNES years explain its market defeat by Sony’s PlayStation. Extending the notion of “platform” to include the marketing forces that shape and constrain creative work, Arsenault draws not only on game studies and histories but on game magazines, boxes, manuals, and advertisements to identify the technological discourses and business models that formed Nintendo’s Super Power. He also describes the cultural changes in video games during the 1990s that slowly eroded the love of gamer enthusiasts for the SNES as the Nintendo generation matured. Finally, he chronicles the many technological changes that occurred through the SNES's lifetime, including full-motion video, CD-ROM storage, and the shift to 3D graphics. Because of the SNES platform’s architecture, Arsenault explains, Nintendo resisted these changes and continued to focus on traditional gameplay genres.

The first monograph dedicated to the visual art of Belgian cult poet and writer Sophie Podolski (1953-1974) features original essays, previously unpublished drawings and texts, and selected translations of her handwritten, illustrated manuscript 'The Country Where Everything Is Permitted' (1972). The contributing writers each explore specific iconographies that are crystallized in Podolski's remarkable graphic oeuvre, considering her highly personal vocabulary and uninhibited style against the backdrop of the late 1960s' and early 1970s' counterculture. Founded on new research that underpinned her solo exhibitions at WIELS (Brussels) and Villa Vassilieff (Paris), this book brings Podolski's lost art into the limelight.00Exhibition: Wiels, Brussels, Belgium (20.01 ? 01.04.2018) / Villa Vassilieff, Paris, France (21.04. - 07.07.2018).

WINNER OF THE TRILLIUM AWARD An unforgettable saga inspired by true events, The Last Exiles is a searing portrait of a young couple in North Korea and their fight for love and freedom Jin and Suja meet and fall in love while studying at university in Pyongyang. She is a young journalist from a prominent family, while he is from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, miles away, Suja has begun to feel the tenuousness of her privilege when she learns that Jin has disappeared. Risking everything, and defying her family, Suja sets out to find him, embarking on a dangerous journey that leads her into a dark criminal underbelly and tests their love and will to survive. In this vivid and moving story, award-winning filmmaker Ann Shin offers a rare glimpse at life inside the guarded walls of North Korea and the harrowing experiences of those who are daring enough to attempt escape. Inspired by real stories of incredible bravery, The Last Exiles is a stunning debut about love, sacrifice and the price of liberty.

The Eastern Kingdom of Mikado is a peaceful land whose inhabitants are rigidly divided into two castes: the common Casualry and the elite Luxurors. Normally, it is impossible to transcend the class you were born into; that is, unless you are chosen at the age of eighteen by "the Gauntlet Rite" to become a Samurai, one of the sworn protectors of Mikado. You are chosen to become a Samurai, and learn a truth kept hidden from the general population: that beneath Mikado lies Naruku, a realm of demons which the Samurai are tasked with suppressing. Inside Our Detailed Strategy Guide: - Every story branch and ending covered: Law, Chaos and Neutral. - Explanations of all the choices that affect alignment; ideal for getting your desired ending. - More than a hundred high quality screenshots to enhance your reading experience. - The best ways to tackle those challenging... Challenge Quests. - Extensive weapon, item and shop listings so won't miss a thing. - A massive Demon Compendium, with all the Demon Skills and Fusion Combinations.

Fight and survive towards the one throne waiting at the end in Persona 4 Arena! The fighting game spinoff to the legendary Persona 4 RPG has already, itself, become an instant classic. Now, this spectacular art book collects the artwork behind the landmark title, including character designs, rough sketches, storyboards, and pin-ups. All this, plus character profiles, story summaries, creator interviews, and more!

Stars Without Number is a science fiction role-playing game inspired by the Old School Renaissance and the great fantasy and science-fiction games of the seventies and eighties. * Compatible with most retroclone RPGs * Helps a GM build a sandbox sci-fi game that lets the players leave the plot rails to explore freely * World building resources for creating system-neutral planets and star sectors * 100 adventure seeds and guidelines for integrating them with the worlds you've made * Old-school compatible rules for guns, cyberware, starships, and psionics * Domain rules for experienced characters who want to set up their own colony, psychic academy, mercenary band, or other institution

Gloranthan History, Myths, and Culture source book for RPGs.

This volume of essays is the first comprehensive publication in English of the work of Miyake Hitoshi, a distinguished scholar of Shugendo (mountain asceticism) and one of the foremost researchers on Japanese folk religion. In Miyake's systematic methodological and theoretical approach, Shugendo is a classic example of Japanese folk religion, for it blends many traditions (shamanism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Shinto) into a distinctive Japanese religious worldview and is typical of Japanese religion generally. The first part of this book is devoted to Shugendo's history, organization, ritual, austerities, thought, and cosmology. Related subjects include exorcism and the exclusion of women. The second part of the book provides research and reflection on Japanese folk religion, including essays on the idea of nature, worldly benefits, new religions, death and rebirth, and the structure of folk religion.