The Novels

Rob Engleman has spent all of his seventeen years on a small island, safe from the dangers of the alien world around him. Yet he is not content to live the simple life of an island farmer. When a mysterious boat is found drifting near his island, Rob will take the opportunity it presents him to leave his home and venture into the menacing unknown.

What's New

a 18-page adventure  in PDF format to follow the clues of a possible treasure map. Player characters must purchase an unusual map from a dockside waif selling bits and bobs to earn a living. Then decipher the maps real location and travel to it. Avoiding assassination by the map's owner, hostile guards, dangerous creatures and aliens seeking revenge.

This 25 page PDF gives the player characters the option of a small quick invasion of an island in the Falcon Empire to rescue two prisoners being held on a Falcon Estate. Time is important, the longer the players take the greater the risk of the falcon Military getting involved. Now available for $3.50

The Falcon Empire still controls Alimia, so the Engleman boys must continue fighting to free it and themselves of this menace. As new allies join the resistance, new distractions appear to test loyalty and love. New challenges present themselves as the stakes are raised ever higher. What sacrifices must be made to ensure freedom and, ultimately, peace?

The Hellhound Consortium looks to keep the tide of war in their favor, but the Falcon Empire is digging in for the long haul. While Rob seeks support for his leadership of the consortium, talk of making peace with the empire sews strife among his followers. The dangers of Planet Archipelago seem to conspire against them, threatening to destroy their fragile alliances.

The war between the Falcon Empire and the Hellhound Consortium is reaching a turning point. Can the Consortium survive a new assault from its enemies? Little Engle Isle becomes the linchpin of success and failure for both sides.After another devastating loss, Rob finds himself deep inside the Falcon Empire, as a slave! Yet when his tragedy becomes opportunity, he will become the best hope of humanity on Planet Archipelago... if he can escape. The Empire itself faces a turning point in its history, and a young farmer from an out of the way island may become the catalyst of a violent change.

The First human colonist to the planet from Earth called these native creatures to the planet Archipelago "dwarves" because they were found living underground. They are now called Duarf with the changes that have happen in the human language since the first colonists arrived.

These distant cousins of the Duarf are called Quillian by the humans. They are more primative and live on floating villages in the open ocean and in the sea of grass area of the planet. They are tempermental, today they might trade a valuable pearl for a copper knife and tomorrow eat you.

About US

Planet Archipelago is a traditional table-top role play game and Novel Series. The Novels are written by B.A. Simmons. The game and game art are designed by Steve Simmons. The game is a skills based rather than class or level based RPG. Designed to be played with a copy of the rules, a 20 sided die, percentage die, and six-sided die. Along with paper and pencil. This game originates from a game designed for play by middle school students in an after-hours club 30 years ago. 

The game is designed as a family friendly game.There are bad non player characters and make believe violence possible
The game is a medieval- science fiction game, so characters in the game may find technology that appears magical but in fact has no magic and is simply technology that is not understood by the player characters.

The Game session is controlled by the person called the game-master. They control the weather based on the season of the year as well as the non-player characters and all creatures. The players create one or more fictional player characters which they control to problem solve different adventures presented by the game-master.
The author believes that there is valuable social and citizenship skills that can be taught and learned by playing this type of game as opposed to a computer games where the child/student plays against a machine devoid of face to face human contact. 
Playing the game promotes: Reading, problem solving, math skills, record keeping, consequences for personal choices, team work, social interaction skills and the value of enterprise.

In the game, player characters may obtain money by seeking adventure, looking for lost treasure, hiring out their skills to an employer or becoming a merchant buying low and selling high. when this is combined with alien creatures(monsters) and alien races of creatures there is lots of room for both learning, fun and adventure.

Steve Simmons The game designer is a retired educator having worked in a one-room school in the backwoods of Montana to teaching at a major state run University. He began designing role play games for classroom use in creative writing and for an after school latch-key club for middle school youth some 30 years ago.

His son B.A. Simmons is an English Teacher in a urban Jr. High School. He now runs an after school gaming club that plays Planet Archipelago.

The Ferlie of Planet Archipelago are also aliens to the planet. They arrived more than four generations before the humans did. They are a high technology culture that hides the technology so that it looks like "magic" They tend to look down on humans as childish brutes who lack in culture and intelligence. The original colonists called them fairies due to their wings and ear shapes the word has morphed over the years into Ferlies.