New York- Jan. 5, 2012– This Thursday, January 6th, game development studio Autarch™ is hosting a party at the Soho Gallery of Digital Art. The Thursday night party celebrates Autarch’s deal with distributor GameSalute to bring the Adventurer Conqueror King System™ into retail stores following its wildly successful crowd-funding effort on Kickstarter - helped in no small measure by ACKS’ stunning cover, an oil painting by Ryan Browning, and the video animation thereof by Timothy Hutchings. Both of these works will be on view in the gallery.
The New York Times featured pictures from Autarch's celebration in its Arts section on Tuesday, January 10th.
At the party, Autarch and co-host Adventuring Parties LLC will be introducing guests to Erol Otus’s forthcoming Island Town adventure, which will be one of the first gaming releases under the new Adventurer Conqueror King compatibility license. Adventuring Parties will be running Adventurer Conqueror King System introductory games from 7pm – 11pm, and the night will conclude with a performance by D20 Burlesque.
The party at the Soho Gallery of Digital Art is part of the larger Dungeons and Dragons: On & Ever Onward art exhibit running on January 4th and 5th. Dungeons and Dragons: On & Ever Onward is a snapshot of the contemporary NYC scene at the intersection of roleplaying games, the art world, and the conservation of Dungeons & Dragons’ legacy. Curator Timothy Hutchings has assembled a retrospective of digital works from two exhibits he was involved with that helped illuminate this scene, The Cursed Chateau at the Indianapolis MOCA and Doomslangers at the Allegra LaViola gallery, as well as a selection of images from the Play-Generated Maps and Documents Archive (PlaGMaDA) that demonstrate the roots of the connection between playing D&D and making art.
Artists whose work is featured in the exhibit include Casey Jex Smith, Ryan Browning, Sean McCarthy, Rebecca Schiffman, Josh Jordan, Jeffrey Brown, Giovanni Garcia-Fenech, Chris Bors, Owen Rundquist, Andrew Guenther Jason Phillips, Ketta Ioannidou, Fiona MacNeill, Kitty Clark, Erol Otus, Steve Zeiser, Matt Brinkman, Chris Coy, and others.
The show also presents new works by two of these artists, Ryan Browning and Erol Otus, that reflect the ongoing collaborations between gamers and artists arising from this scene. The panel discussion on “Dungeons & Dragons in Contemporary Art” during the Doomslangers run in NYC began the conversation that led to Ryan’s venture outside the studio to contribute illustrations for the Adventurer Conqueror King role-playing game, a selection of which are included in the exhibit. Its publisher, Autarch, will also be partnering with Erol Otus and the North Texas RPG Convention to release his fantastically illustrated adventure “IslandTown” this summer.
About Autarch (http://www.autarch.co):
Autarch is a partnership of game-creators committed to releasing quality tabletop gaming products. Comprised of gamers, writers, artists and publishers from New York Cityto Durham, NC, Autarch collectively loves forging new experiences and reveling in old masterpieces. Individually, the partners have published gaming website The Escapist, written RPG supplements for Wizards of the Coast and Goodman Games, and devised miniature war games, but the Adventurer Conqueror King System is Autarch’s first adventure together.
About Adventuring Parties LLC (http://www.adventuringparties.com):
Adventuring Parties runs a weekly after-school class introducing NYC elementary school students to RPGs, and has created kids’ birthday parties, bachelor parties fromPennsylvania to Texas and Pennsylvania, public outreach gaming events like the Arneson Memorial Gameday, and promotional events like the launch party for the digital release of IDW’s D&D comics on comiXology.
About d20 Burlesque (http://www.d20burlesque.com):
D20 Burlesque is a critically acclaimed burlesque show catering to the gamer community in theNew York Cityarea. Their monthly event at the Parkside Lounge is regularly selected as one of Time OutNew York’s top 5 nightlife events. You haven’t lived until you have seen the dance of the giant twenty-sided dice.