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Whitewash city is a series of 10 old west buildings that you download, print out, and assemble. Scale is set for 25mm. The buildings are: Bakery, Bank, Cafe, Dry Goods store, Grand Hotel, Pioneer Hotel (a smaller hotel), Saloon, Sheriff's Office, and misc. smaller buildings (one file, this one comes with Storage Shed, log cabin, Outhouse and Bathhouse). The Miner's Cabin is a free sample building. Each building costs $3, or $2 each if you purchase five or more. Each download consists of 6 pages (except for the Grand Hotel, which is 12 pages). The first page contains the floorplan of the building in question, the next two pages are the black and white templates for the building itself, and pages 4 and 5 are the colorized version. The final page is a blank floorplan allowing you to customize the interior to meet the needs of your game. All files are in acrobat format and range from 400k in size (the Miner's cabin) to 1.2meg in size (The Grand Hotel).

The Good Quality: The quality of these files are top notch. In the balancing act between file size and image quality, Eric manages to give you both a reasonable file size and a nice, crisp looking set of images.

Accuracy: Eric has researched each building that he created. I traded a few emails with the Eric when buying the set and learned that he has long made a hobby of the Old West, having spent some time as a field archeologist rooting around old miner's camps often visiting ghost towns. His knowledge of the subject shows through with the detailed floor plans and building details.

Quantity: See above for everything you get with the file. $3 dollars each or $20 for the full set of ten is a hard price to beat.

The Bad Outside of the usual flaws with downloadable files, (you have to supply the printer, the paper, and the time; only computer accessible; bypasses retail stores; easily piratable, etc) there is only one minor thing with Whitewash City - it's delicate. You will need a lot of time, care and patience to put them together well. A sharp blade (razor/x-acto or somesuch - scissors won't, ahem, cut it) is needed, as well as a fairly quick setting glue and some good weight cardstock to print them out on. And in the end result, it's still a cardstock building so some care will have to be spent in protecting your investment of time. But, if your cat happens to leap upon one crushing it flat all you have to do is print out another one.

You can see the buildings, get the free sample building, and purchase the rest at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/whitewashcity.html
Or you can contact Eric Hotz directly at
Suite 110-19567 Fraser Hwy
Surrey, BC V3S 9A4 Canada
erichotz@direct.ca
http://www.erichotz.com
Phone & FAX: (604) 619-6925
(These are all publically distributed by the author)

Whitewash City is a thoroughly high quality product for a great price. If you are playing Boot Hill, Deadlands, Gurps: Old West, Wanted Dead or Alive, Great Rail Wars, the Rules with No Name, a Civil War game or time traveling game, want to have your modern day/future RPG group visit an old west ghost town or just want a set of really nice buildings: I don't think that go wrong with these. At the very least, there is the free sample building to try out first to see if you these fit your tastes. Allan Seyberth