If you had to ask me “Which superhero or villain is the closest friend to Rocket Racer?” I’d obviously have to reply the Prowler. They’ve been friends in a bunch of comics. But Bob’s relationship with Prowler is a topic for some other post. Today I’m talking about the best friend Rocket Racer has that we’ve barely been shown: Antoine Delsoin, the Hypno-Hustler!

Bob and Antoine first appeared together in a story that is likely the worst story in Rocket Racer’s limited history of appearances. But I won’t hold that against the relationship between the two characters.

When we first see Bob and Antoine as a pair, they are in prison together, and join a “crew” assembled by the criminal known as Tombstone (also, Big Ben is there, but we don’t need to worry about him now). We’re not told if this is the first time Bob and Antoine have met, but they don’t seem to get along well. I posit maybe they knew each other and even worked together, got caught, and blame each other. That would certainly cause some tension between them.

That story came and went until, suddenly, fourteen years later, another comic depicted the two together. This time, it was just a single panel (but a better comic). Bob and Antoine, both out of prison at this point, were just talking about developments in the superhero/villain community. We have no way to know if this was their first time catching up since prison, or if they’ve stayed in touch all along.

But what I do know is that Bob and Antoine make a good pair of friends. Antoine, like Bob, is a low-level supercrook who is pretty ridiculous on the surface and is routinely mocked for it. The main difference between them is that Antoine is never embarrassed by it. In his way, Antoine has a lot more self-respect than Bob. He’s more socially active, he is comfortable being himself, and unlike Bob, Antoine definitely fucks.

They’re a great contrasting pair. I’d like to see their relationship continue to shine in what few appearances these chumps get. Heck, make ’em roommates, sharing a supervillain lair because neither makes enough to afford one on their own.

I mean, why not?

Time flows so quickly that I was surprised to learn that it has been more than two months since I officially announced I was making a game called Surrounded By Danger. But in those two months, progress has continued and I can say that I think the basic mechanics of the game are nearly complete. There is only a little fine-tuning left to account for balancing issues and the like. Otherwise, this is a completely functional cooperative board game that I have playtested with four other people, not including myself. It genuinely works.

But, unfortunately/extremely fortunately, something has changed since the last time I wrote on the topic. I delved into research on other cooperative board games and learned a lot about what exists in the genre these days. What I learned changed this project entirely: there are board games that now attempt to tell ongoing persistent stories. I got very into the idea, and I very much am now working on a Story Mode for Surrounded by Danger. It’s going well! I’ve even tested it! And while it may not be as developed as the basic mechanic yet, but it’s coming along.

Another bit of progress that has occurred is less good news. I had really, really wanted to release this game with the subtitle “An Urban Beekeeping Simulator” because it would greatly amuse me to do so. But cooler heads have convinced me that this would give potential players an incorrect view of what the game is about. Is it my fault that the populace at large doesn’t know that Beekeepers are all about fighting crime and investigating supernatural threats? No, I’ve done everything in my power to prove this to them. But the more people who come into the game, the more will learn about the greatness of Beekeepers, so I guess I should do this right.

Although this series of posts has been labelled “Planet Gurx” it is simply the case that the denizens of that planet, the Strondovarians, have spread not only to other planets, but other star systems. Though other alien species may dispute the claim, this is the region that Strondovarians consider to be under their ownership:

The Core
These are the stars which are most populated and trafficked by the Strondos. Every world and moon in this range has been visited, studied, and put to use in some way, whether it be as a colony or being mined for resources to use elsewhere.

• Ahan: This is, of course, the system in which the planet Gurx is located and the Strondovarians arose.
• Iapway: The first system visited by Strondo explorers millennia ago, Iapway features a lot of the oldest colonized worlds away from home. To prevent the occupants here from straying too far from Strondovarian culture, the technology was invented to sync up the Knowledge Base to other systems.
• Parraeloa: This is the system where Strondos first located other complex life forms, Doaphean. This world was colonized and was highly populated, but was devastated during a cosmic war. It has been rebuilding, but even now, thousands of years later, the scars from that war are felt.
• Gaobaina: Finding no planets here with atmospheres that could be altered for their use, the Strondovarians set up colonies here in underground cities where they didn’t need as much air.
• Chossnox: This is the industrial section of the core where there are many factories or shipyards and such. There is a steady stream of resources being shipped into this system from other ones.

The core is the most highly protected. This map does not even identity what types of stars each system has, because that would make it easier to find the actual location of Gurx, and the Strondos don’t want that. It is assumed, though, that in one of these systems (or perhaps in the space between them) the construction of New Gurx is underway.

The Outskirts

These systems are less populated. In some, there are worlds largely ignored by the Strondos, or there are small frontier populations that the primary Strondo culture consider strange. In several (Heatyee, Semban, Lookaix, and Paikochid), the main presence is automated machines that are strip mining the worlds and bringing the resources to the core.

But there are systems in the outskirts that have some points of interest:

• Briagrog: With many worlds with underground colonies, like those in Gaobaina, this system would probably be considered part of the core if not for its distance.
• Nooabbaeo: A massive space telescope has been built here, with an accompanying science outpost to study its findings.
• Lay: This system has the most space stations, which makes it a nice location for Strondos who aren’t as comfortable on planets (it’s not a small number that feel that way).
• Aekaerin: This system is home to the biggest space station known to Strondos. That’s nice for Strondos who prefer space stations, but not small ones.
• Kloubuoan: A frontier area populated only by Strondos who feel like they need to escape from something, or who think they have some big idea and this is the perfect place to bring it to fruition.
• Eapoas: Another frontier area, this is considered the “last stop” in Strondo space before reaching the star system where planet Blong is located. For that reason, there is a colony here in which both Strondos and Blongians live together.
• Ookig: During the cosmic war against forces much more powerful than they were, the Strondos created a “false Gurx” here and made it seem as if this system was the capital of their culture, to better hide Ahan. Though neither Gurx was successfully attacked during that war, the fake one is generally avoided because it reminds Strondos of that conflict.
• Poaitheem: Is home to “the Graveyards” a remnant of destruction from the cosmic war. Shattered spaceships and artifacts can be found here, and Strondo scientists have gone looking for them, but they usually only find strange occurrences have given the system a reputation for being haunted.

And here is an example of an automated spacecraft that tows resources from one system to another at sub-light speed, so it takes quite a while: