Title: Gladlands
GM: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Players: Ally Beardsley (they/them) as Quinn Wedbush (she/her); Zac Oyama (he/him) as Connor Kawasaki (he/him); Oscar Montoya (he/him) as Poppy Persona (she/her); Jacob Wysocki (he/him) as Kokomo (he/all); Vic Michaelis (they/she) as Hugi (All Pronouns), and Kimia Behpoornia (she/her) as Tess Tube5 (he/him).
Streaming Service: Dropout
Dimension 20 has returned! We once more dive into the future, but rather than the space odyssey of an anarch era, we’re on the dust bowl dystopian most popular in movies like Mad Max. However, our Dusty Do-Gooders aren’t the vicious roaming band of gasoline guzzlers commonly associated with this sort of sandy wastelands. Instead, our team seeks to sweeten the sour of an apocalyptic word one delivery at a time.
We join our team in the midst of a delivery run. After a blood drive soured due to an ongoing sandstorm, the crew needs to deliver thank you notes to the quickly fleeing participants before the sandstorm overtakes them all. If they fail, hope for future blood drives dwindles.
As part of this season, we have the Bummerometer. This device measures how well our Dusty Do-Gooders are doing. When in the green, all is going well, but as the bummers add up, they’ll sink into the red. Any failure by 5 or more will cause things to get worse. In this first introduction, a 9 means the sandstorm will catch up.
Vic Michaelis fell head over heals immediately for our first crew NPC, Rubby. With a high regenerative factor, Rubby managed to come back from a single thumb.
Leading the crew, Vic’s Hugi races to get control of the situation. They throw a tooth at Connor, calling out to get the motorist focused on the delivery.
The sandstorm closes in behind them. Towering like a geological form, the monstrous wall of sand closes in as Hugi tosses the letters to Connor. Our second roll of the game almost had an instant character death. When any of the players rolls for apocalyptic mayhem, a roll of 1 instantly results in their death. Luckily, they roll with advantage. Unluckily, Zac Oyama nearly took himself out with his first roll as he received a 1 and a 2 for catching the letters.
Of course, while Connor avoided death, 2 is still a result of complete failure. Connor receives 2 Boo Boos, this season’s tokens, and the letters scatter. Worse still, the Bummerometer moves up into the yellow, nearly moving into the red.
Any doubt that Ally will be a voice of reason this season vanished with their character’s introduction. Quinn was in a militant underground cult, surviving a huge apocalypse fumble to later join our Dusty Do-Gooders. Leaping with a net, Quinn manages to recover most of the letters.
Following up behind, Poppy Persona and her assistant, Parcel, in their Truthbrary. Letters fly by, and they work to forge new thank you notes to replace those that were lost to the storm.
Underneath a traveling tree, Kokomo dozes, watching the chaos. Poppy yells him awake, and he rises to help his friend. Kokomo takes the letter, flying off with a motorized umbrella flying device. While they aimed for Connor, Kokomo manages to deliver two of the eight letters.
This success raises the Good Goo. Boo Boo tokens, if unused, and all major successes add to the positivity and harmony of the Gladlands. What will happen when we hit sixteen and beyond? We’ll just have to watch to find out.
Thundering up behind, Tess makes his way alongside the caravan. While everyone aims for the delivery, Tess activates the surf mode of his skateboard, deflecting the sandstorm and sending the fleeing transports into the canyon.
Hugi jumps out, scouting the canyon. They call out loose boulders. However, navigating the canyon slows them, making them easier to catch but putting them at risk of the sandstorm which closes in despite Tess’s efforts.
Connor and Quinn deliver two more letters, successfully making half of their deliveries. Through some hard work, Kokomo delivers two, leaving just two more. The crew succeeds in their delivery. We also learn that Quinn once had a husband, but unfortunately, he died during the lock-in.
After their success, our Dusty Do-Gooders end their first episode awkwardly fumbling before setting course to continue their quest for good.
Highlights
With a new group around the table and a new world on the map, I’m predicting Ally will once more step into the role of reason, providing support and their more nuanced character approach which we saw in Starstruck and Never Stop Blowing Up. Vic seems a likely candidate to feign being a second voice of reason in this chaotic crew, but with their dry, absurdist humor, I think that will be a fake out, and that inevitably, Oscar will step up to keep the team on task. From this episode, the biggest source of chaos seems to be Kimia.
Still, even as an organizing force, Ally can’t entirely leave chaos behind, so no surprise the cage directly associates with an actual cannibal event.
Final Score (5 out of 5 Stars)
After the final count, Good Goo ends at a nine, and our Bummerometer is in the green, but the cute, chaos of this new crew absolutely stole my heart. I’m a fan of sci-fi, and it’s lovely to see Dimension 20 venture into the post-apocalyptic.
Outside of a desire for a better world through simple acts of human kindness, we don’t have a solid antagonist or particulars for where the story will go, so I won’t make too many guesses here, but let us know what Mad Max dystopian tropes you’re hoping for this season in comments below or go over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.
Featured Image: Dimension 20
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The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord.
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