Biohazard Games is a company located in

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth ...

that publishes role-playing games, most of them designed by Jeff Barber and Jim Heivilin. The company tends to work closely with

Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game company based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, card, and dice games. As of 2014, it is a subsidiary of Asmodée Éditions. History Fantasy Flight Publish ...

History

Many Biohazard employees originally produced work for ''

The Unspeakable Oath ''The Unspeakable Oath'' is a game magazine that was published by Pagan Publishing from 1990 to 2001, and later by Arc Dream Publishing starting in 2010. History Pagan Publishing was founded in 1990 in Columbia, Missouri by 19-year-old John Tyne ...

'' published by

Pagan Press ''The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein'' is a 2007 book written and published by John Lauritsen, which defends the unorthodox hypothesis that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, not his wife Mary Shelley, is the real author of ''Frankenstein; or, The Moder ...

when it was located in Columbia, Missouri. But when Pagan founder

John Scott Tynes John Scott Tynes (born 1971) is an American writer best known for his work on role-playing games such as ''Unknown Armies'', ''Delta Green'', ''Puppetland'', and for his company, Tynes Cowan Corporation. Under its imprint, Pagan Publishing, Tyne ...

moved the company to Seattle in 1994, a core of people including Jeff Barber chose to stay in Columbia. Barber subsequently founded Biohazard Games. As game historian Shannon Appelcline explained in the 2014 book ''Designers & Dragons'', "Many of the Pagan volunteers lived together there — and not all of them wanted to move. Jeff Barber and others would leave Pagan as a result. Sadly, their departure was not entirely amicable." Biohazard's first product was a 1995 supplement for modern-era role-playing games titled '' Killer Crosshairs''. Their next product, and the one they would become known for, was the 1997 role-playing game '' Blue Planet''. As Appelcline noted, "''Blue Planet'' shared at least a little inspiration with Pagan's planned ''End Time'' game. The credits from ''Blue Planet'' were filled with early ''The Unspeakable Oath '' contributors, representing those who had been left behind." Biohazard had only sold 2,700 copies of ''Blue Planet'' by 1999, so they made a deal for better distribution with Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), which was looking for a flagship RPG line. FFG took on Barber's partner Greg Benage as an employee to work on the game and rewrite the game's mechanics entirely. FFG supported the game with several supplements over the next few years, and the rights reverted to Biohazard in 2004. A few years later,

RedBrick Limited RedBrick Limited was a New Zealand game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements. The company moved to the United States in 2010 and established business as RedBrick LLC. In 2018, RedBrick Publishing – the successor to RedBri ...

acquired the license to ''Blue Planet''. RedBrick soon licensed all of its gaming rights to

FASA Games Fasa ( fa, فسا, Fasā, also Romanized as Fassa) is a city and capital of Fasa County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 110,825, in 33,379 families. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province. The city date ...

, but in late 2013 Biohazard declined to renew the ''Blue Planet'' license with FASA Games. In 2021, Andrew Girdwood interviewed Barber about the third edition of ''Blue Planet'' titled ''Blue Planet: Recontact'', and Barber agreed that Biohazard's games tend to reflect contemporary environmental concerns.

Company products

* '' Killer Crosshairs'', Jeff Barber, 1995 * '' Blue Planet'', 1997 * ''Upwind'', Jeff Barber 2017

References

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External links

Biohazard Games website
1994 establishments in Missouri American companies established in 1994 Publishing companies established in 1994 Role-playing game publishing companies