Commentary on The Alpha Blue Kickstarter Play Test By Venger Satanis For Your Old School Space Opera & Science Fantasy Campaigns

So if your like me then you've probably been following the goings on of Venger Satanis's latest ventures in this case the evolution of his Alpha Blue Kickstarter. Well he's been doing a bit of test gaming with some of his friends in his retro gonzo interstellar space brothel. And the results look really impressive to say the least.


I don't know what it is about Alpha Blue but on a number of levels this place as adventure location appeals to me. Maybe because he's named it after The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue which is one of the early Eighties exploitative wave of porn films. Don't check that particular film out unless of course your a completest. But I digress from the excellent product that Alpha Blue appears to be shaping up to. This is the Blue Flamingo a ship that appears to be straight out of a Seventies space opera. 
Love the design of the ship and the details of it. You can see more below in the play test that Venger ran.



The Blue Flamingo is only a small part of the Alpha Blue experience, besides the space hookers, questionable morals, weird experiences there are some fantastic maps that have been revealed on the play test table. Monkey Blood Designs does some incredible work and I love what I'm seeing here.

Tim Virnig recent post about Alpha Blue was very interesting and peaked my attention span;
"This Saturday I am excited to play a beta-test run by +Venger Satanis using his new Alpha Blue setting.  Venger said he put together a bunch of new random tables that are taking GONZO to a new level. " The pictures that I saw from the play test did not disappoint. Alpha Blue is  as big as a city, so there's no shortage of wild escapades, interesting characters, lucrative opportunities, and naked throbbing pleasure.  Plus, there will be plenty of scenario seeds fleshed out for planet-side shenanigans.  And after seeing some of the photos I can honestly see the potential of this product as part of an on going campaign.

I can see Alpha Blue being a major jump off point for many OSR retrolclone games such as White Star or even X plorers rpg, or Hulks and Horrors
The backdrop of Alpha Blue makes it easily insertable into your favorite setting even as a back door into the interstellar landscape. Described as a '
Now decommissioned mental asylum, Alpha Blue is something akin to an interstellar whore house or "love boat", drifting from planet to planet, acquiring new talent, clients, and security.  It's as big as a city, so there's no shortage of wild escapades, interesting characters, lucrative opportunities, and naked throbbing pleasure. " its easy to see how this floating palace of flesh and sin could be a prime point for sci fi action, and to separate your PC's from their hard earned coin.



So here's some of the stats on the maps and diagrams  for both the Blue Flamingo and Alpha Blue itself according to Monkey Blood Designs "
Venger has used then in action, and they are now available to Kickstarter backers from the KS update.
Available in 600dpi files that will plot BIG.... that spaces tation will plot at 300dpi to 34"W x 44"H"

Workflow notes:
The background trace was built in Visio.
This was plotted to suit 17" x 22" paper size.
Inkwork was traced on the lightbox.
Inkwork was then scanned at 17" x 22" size
Scan was pulled into Photoshop where coloration and effects were added."


Given how Alpha Blue is such a draw as a location I can see this being added into an existing campaign to help flesh out some of the more interesting bits of interstellar adventure with a Venger Satanis twist. Venger has a proven track record with the gonzo and this should be a pretty damn interesting, sleazy, and twisted book. He's got a proven track record delivering the goods time and again. His influences are pretty well evident in even this small reveal of Alpha Blue. I really do envy the play testers. Some of the influences also reveal some of the possible OSR lead ins that he's got going to be putting into the background of Alpha Blue
;these include;" classic sci-fi TV and film inspiration to see me through... such as Blake's 7, (vintage) Doctor Who and Star Trek, Star Wars, Ice Pirates, Heavy Metal, Thundarr the Barbarian, Starchaser: the Legend of Orin, Flash Gordon, Blade Runner, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Dune, and dozens more. This makes Alpha Blue a perfect lead in for other old school or retro adventures. Alpha Blue could be used as a recovery place for those adventurers who venture into Carcosa via Lamentations of the Flame Princess.There might be a  few facilities of Alpha Blue that could easy the insanity that runs through your PC's minds and what's left of their souls after they get scrapped off of the landscape of Carcosa.


I can't wait to see how he's going to pull this one off and the ripples across the OSR with his latest creations.  Space brothels really are an untapped resource for both space fantasies and space opera adventures this product has the potential to be a really fun and weird OSR resource. He's also done a series of commercials for the  Crimson Dragon Slayer rpg  that are a hoot.