Parts of this track are really catchy, memorable, and enjoyable … but other parts are just weird and distracting. The basic riffs do a good job of creating an energetic, suspenseful atmosphere, but starting around 2:15 there are odd sound effects that make me think of giant mutant pigeons cooing. This really brings the track down for me; I like everything else about the track, but that center section can’t be ignored. (The ID3 tags are also “messy,” with underscores in the track name and such, but the publisher has being doing a better job with the tags in more recent releases.)

As always, Jonathan Roberts delivers fine artwork for this map, and Rite Publishing delivers multiple formats to meet a wide variety of needs. The clockwork maze provides an interesting encounter location, and the layout is clever, although clearer indication of elevation might be useful (it might also interfere with the map’s aesthetics, so I waffle on this matter). The level of technology on evidence here might be too high for a typical fantasy role-playing campaign, unless you’re playing in a setting like Eberron that incorporates some steampunk-type elements. The “maze” doesn’t seem to have an entrance or exit; the whole thing is surrounded by a solid wall. DMs using the map will need to provide their own entrances and exits.

These terrain tiles are well-conceived in terms of placing elements on the page, but several tiles exhibit a significant variety in art styles, reminding me of tiles composed in Dundjinni using elements from a variety of artists. Take section 2, for example: the hedges cast no shadow at all, the tattered easy chair casts its shadow due north, the couch/divan casts its shadow southwest, and the bathtub casts its shadow northeast—suggesting that the shadows (where they exist) came with the elements themselves rather than being created to fit the scene. The use of PDF layers to allow extra customization is a very nice feature, though, and I think the product is, overall, worth the $3.99 price tag it carries as of this writing. There are flaws, but there are also very few products that fill the same niche, so picking up this tile set and the companion City Tiles 2 is quite worthwhile if you want to use battlemaps in an urban pulp-style game.

This product delivers nine character/monster standees (several of them zombie variants) and four gravestone standees. Frankly, I would have expected more from the price. The artwork is good, but something seems “off” about the pose or perspective; the figures seem squished or skewed.

This product offers a nice, small keep in Jonathan Roberts’s signature pen-and-ink style. A black-and-white version is also included for those who don’t want to print in color (presumably to save money on ink). The titular “watchfire” is a prominent feature. I don’t know anything about the Kobold Quarterly adventure this map was drawn for, so I can’t comment on its suitability for that purpose. But this would be a great location for any group of PCs to try to defend … or overrun, depending on its inhabitants. The layout is fairly distinctive, so it might or might not have much replay value, depending on your campaign and your players. But at such a low price, it’s a good deal even if you only use it once.

This saxophone-dominated track isn’t quite what I expected. It’s sort of a fusion of jazz, bluegrass, and funk—which actually works out okay musically, but it’s hard for me to picture just what “porch” fits this music best. The tune is catchy and yet reasonably unintrusive, but its setting eludes me. (The ID3 tags also need cleanup, an issue the publisher has addressed well in more recent releases.)

In this addition to “Zsezse’s World” of 1” scale RPG battlemaps, you get a small catacomb (dungeon) interior and the above-ground entrance to it. The maps are nicely conceived and beautifully illustrated, as is normally the case with LZW products. I don’t think this product has a lot of replay value; you’re likely to use it once per campaign at most. Still, it’s a good buy!

This is a really nice type of product: a fully-conceived and illustrated adventure location, complete with inhabitants and a backstory, but easily customizable and completely system-independent. Read through the descriptions, print and assemble the battlemap, drop in appropriate monsters from your favorite system, and you’re ready to go! The product’s main weakness, on the other hand, is the mixture of artistic styles on the battlemap, where harsh black lines clash with photorealistic textures, and the attempt to use Photoshop beveling to make the water appear recessed actually has the opposite effect, making it appear “puffy.” For only $3.95, however, you can probably overlook these relatively minor aesthetic flaws.

James Semple’s compositions for Four Shadows are beautifully conceived and performed, and they capture exactly the right tone of an investigation-based Cthulhu mythos game. Including both a “pulp version” and a “purist version” of the Trail of Cthulhu theme is a brilliant move (if you’re not familiar with Trail of Cthulhu, those are the two game styles described in the rules) and the music fits each label perfectly. Neither theme, however, is a “loop while playing” kind of composition, so their usefulness is really rather limited. The other two tracks, “Ruminations” and “Anagnorisis,” are wonderfully cinematic—but, unfortunately, rather too cinematic. Despite each track’s modest length (3:08 and 3:14, respectively), both exhibit definite movement and progression. Such distinct changes of mood, crescendos/decrescendos, and so on make the tracks ill-fitting for a freeform RPG where anything might happen. Therefore, while the music and the production values are of absolutely the highest quality, the product doesn’t well serve the purpose of scoring a Trail of Cthulhu play session. You could, I suppose, wait and play the tracks at just the right moment, once through instead of looping. The Eternal Lies Suite, also by James Semple’s team, serves better. Get Four Shadows for simple listening pleasure, not for constant background music during your game.

The energy and edge to this track make it a great choice for scoring any kind of action scene in a modern, near-future, or post-apocalyptic setting. The track is exciting and catchy, but not intrusive, and it loops perfectly—just what an RPG soundscape needs to be. The ID3 tags are populated more helpfully than Woodrum’s earlier pieces, though I would still suggest populating the album name tag (perhaps with “Fishwife Games”—at least that’s what I do to group Woodrum’s pieces together in my iTunes library) and I’d still love to have album artwork embedded in the file. Everything else about this piece is top-notch.

I really like this track, so much so that I can leave it loop for hours and not get tired of it. It’s got a great balance of mystery and energy. The techno/electronic instrumentation does limit the applicability at the gaming table to sci-fii, near future, and that sort of thing; it might even work with an occult-themed or otherwise esoteric superhero scenario. I don’t recommend trying to shoehorn it into other, unintended genres like fantasy. My only complaint about this product is the population of the ID3 tags (the title shouldn’t have underscores and doesn’t need to include anything but the title; “Fishwife Games” is not a musical genre; an album name is needed, and album art would be nice).

This track is eerie and even just a bit weird, but in a good way. At first I didn’t really care for it, but it’s strangely addictive. As indicated in the product description, it would work best with a modern, near future, or sci-fi setting; it may be just a bit too high-tech for straight horror, but would fit right in with something like Delta Green or CthulhuTech. The piece loops well (though not seamlessly). The ID3 tags need to be populated more helpfully (an album name would be useful, album art would be nice, the track name shouldn’t have all those underscores in it, and “Fishwife Games” is not a musical genre).

This is truly a fantastic product. The writers and editors put in a lot of work to “get it right,” and it certainly pays off. As the subtitle states, Eureka gives you 501 “adventure plots.” Each plot starter contains enough information for you to expand the plot into a single adventuring session or perhaps a longer arc. The plot starters are sorted into three broad genres—sci-fi, fantasy, and horror—but are also tagged with more specific descriptors that cover both settings and plot features. Suppose, for example, that you’re running a superhero game and you want a lighthearted scenario. With Eureka, you can flip over to “Index 1: Plots by Genre,” and look for plots that are listed under both “Supers” and “Comedy” (#27 is the first one that fits both genre designators). Or maybe you want to take the superheroes into outer space; cross-references “Supers” in Index 1 with “interplanetary” in Index 2 to find a useful plot. Production values are very high. The PDF is thoroughly bookmarked, and the table of contents is hyperlinked. The download includes both “full” and “plain” (lacking background/border graphics) versions of the PDF. Eureka truly deserves the highest possible praise for an “adventure seeds” product.

This short piece has a funky, techno-heavy feel that fits a "space opera" setting reasonably well. The track loops acceptably, but I don’t recommend looping it for very long. The tones start to get annoying after a while. I would suggest more using this as a once-through when characters first arrive at a bustling spaceport or something like that. You might could loop it under a chase or action scene, but see above. The ID3 tags need to be populated more helpfully (an album name would be useful, the track name shouldn’t have all those underscores in it, and “Fishwife Games” is not a musical genre).

The T-Builder line uses PDF layers and form controls to let you lay various bits on top of a basic background. It’s a little bit like using Dundjinni, only much more constrained. The Undead Haunt pack lets you place various kinds of flooring, furnishings, blood splatters, and so on over a basic ground texture that looks like gray dirt with a light covering of gray grass. You can also fill in the whole area with a decorated tile floor, but you’ll have to click 36 or 72 times to make it happen; there really ought to be an option to lay down all of these things at once. The system is not difficult to use once you get the hang of it, but it’s slow and cumbersome even for a skilled user. The results are serviceable, but not nearly as nice as those produced by an artist creating a specific tile. Still, the ability to customize is welcome, and it’s kind of fun to play with. The instructions try to help users master the T-Builder system, but the English composition/translation is occasionally very poor. You can’t save your work; this is not the publisher’s fault (and the publisher warns about this in the instructions, even highlighting the statement in red), but it does highlight the inherent limitations of publishing such a tool as a PDF. (Yes, this review is basically the same as for all the other T-Builder packs, because they’re pretty much all the same except for the artwork.)