What is This About

We’re Aviv and Eran, two London-based Israeli gamers who work in and around the tabletop gaming industry and enjoy various creative activities. Also, games!

What’s the webcomic about?
A group of friends are playing a tabletop role playing game, with all the cool, sometimes frustrating, sometimes surprising things that happen to you when you’re involved in such an activity.
Also, the world of Crystal Heart in which they play is wicked cool – everyone has stones instead of hearts and they can get super powers by replacing the stone with a Crystal. Yeah!

Didn’t you guys use to do mostly one-off jokes?
Yes, and you can read them all here. We moved to London a few years ago (and two years apart), and a lot of the webcomic’s humor comes from this culture clash. Several years ago in Israel, we used to have a popular webcomic called V Squared – it was hosted by a video game website called Vgames, so it’s a clever play on words – and for a while we’ve been wanting to re-ignite that flame, since we had a lot of fun creating a gaming webcomic. Thanks to a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign of Eran’s RPG podcast, we got the needed kick to, well, start, this new webcomic, this time in English.

After two successful years of doing this, we’ve decided we want to try something new‎. So now, Crystal Heart!

“This game references the Savage Worlds game system, available from Pinnacle Entertainment Group at www.peginc.com. Savage Worlds and all associated logos and trademarks are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Used with permission. Pinnacle makes no representation or warranty as to the quality, viability, or suitability for purpose of this product.”


The Crystal Heart storyline is also available on these sites. Please consider subscribing and liking, it helps us get noticed by new readers!


 

Contact Us

Our email address for any enquiry is comics@uptofourplayers.com. Our personal emails are listed below.


See us Elsewhere on the Interwebs

We've been interviewed on: Secret Hitler, The Campaigner, Gaming with Gage
We have a GeekList on BoardGameGeek with all of the games we featured in strips.

Translations
These guys occasionally translate strips for their websites:
Czech: Karel Hladis for 
hrajeme.cz
Portuguese: Renato J. Lopes for tabulaquadrada and Carlyle for his store.

Aviv Or

avivor@gmail.com - art, writing, site design, accounting

I've been drawing comics ever since the 90's animated X-Men series showed me a brand new world of superheroic, fantastic, tights-wearing action adventure. Well, at first it was less comics and more mangled doodles of flying humanoids, but with time (and with a copy of the magnificent How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way) doodles became characters, characters started posing in scenes, and scenes turned into stories.

Nowadays I do freelance illustration work, mostly for tabletop games. Some highlights include:

You can see these and more in my portfolio, or check my Facebook Page for some older artwork, both personal and professional. The best place to follow me currently - for art, updates, general musings, and pictures of food - is Twitter.

Find me on the web:

 

Eran Aviram

eran.aviram@gmail.com - writing, some storyboarding, logistics

I edit and write games, with the main purpose of turning more people into players, and then give those players the tools that allow them to enjoy more things. These days I'm the editor in chief for Son of Oak (City of Mist, Queerz!, :Otherscape), and work as a freelance editor and writer.

Previously, I also did these things:

  • Hosted and produced "On the Shoulders of Dwarves", the English edition of Israel's main RPG podcast (running in Hebrew since 2013).
  • Written for EN Publishing, Mongoose Publishing, Goodman Games, and others. Some of it is available here.
  • Developed and produced Menagerie of the Void, Venture Forth, and other games.
  • Translated or edited every major roleplaying book published in Israel since 2002, including D&D 3th and 4th ed., Pathfinder, Exalted, Dungeon World, and Savage Worlds (also, some board games)
  • Used to own and manage Tactica, a board game and RPG store in the middle of Tel Aviv, for two and a half years

Find me on the web:

 

Both of Us

Some of our past collaborative efforts include:

 

Tech Guys

Aviv Manoach is a marketing professional with several years of experience with both SMB and corporate clients, including work with some of the largest companies in Israel. Founder and editor of IceL.me, a gaming and technology website; publisher of roleplaying games. Find him here.

Evyatar Amitay is a front end / game developer and a Blizzard enthusiast. He is not a miniature hoarder, only plays one in a popular webcomic.