30 years ago the Dreamstone Cartoon swept onto our tellies with a lilting ballad-esque theme song that carried you along like a bubble in a dream. Now to celebrate the 30th Anniversary in September Oakbound Studios are on Kickstarter with an official line of miniatures and games.

Geoff Sims is a self-confessed fan and had sculpted a pair of figures from the Dreamstone and sent them to the producer of the show and from that small seed a mighty oak has taken root with this Kickstarter The Dreamstone: 30th Anniversary Miniatures Collection.

"Beneath the Red Planet of Doom, beneath the Black Mountain of Viltheed, a servant of evil stirs..."

If you haven't seen the Dreamstone then fear not for all 50 episodes have been uploaded onto youtube for you to introduce a new generation of fans too. For those of you who haven't got the time right now, it's a simple tale as old as time itself. On one hemisphere of the planet is the Land of Dreams, inhabited by simple happy folks like the Noops and Wuts.

Watching over them is the benevolent Dream Maker who fashions handcrafted dreams to send out every night for the people to enjoy. The southern hemisphere is the Land of Nightmares ruled over by Zordrak. Zordrak was once a Dream Maker himself. He was ejected from the council for corrupting dreams into nightmares when the council ejected him he transformed himself into his current form and landed in Viltheed where he remains vowing vengeance on the Dream Maker.

The only thing separating the two lands is Limbo, a ring through which travel is impossible. Only flight can pierce the barrier and Zordrak has tasked his Urpney's with the theft of the Dreamstone so he can unleash his nightmare hordes of Argorribles upon the land in revenge. So that's you all caught up, let's take a look at the Kickstarter itself.

The Dreamstone: 30th Anniversary Miniatures Collection

The first of the pledges that are available are the miniatures collection itself. All of the miniatures are resin cast and have all the character of the animation they sprang forth from. The characters in the series vary in height from the diminutive Noops to the colossal Zordrak.

The miniatures range has sought to preserve these relative heights as much as possible whilst providing a high level of detail, satisfying size for gaming and fitting neatly into display cabinets. Smaller miniatures are supplied on 18mm round bases, larger miniatures are supplied on 25mm round bases.

Alas, I doubt very much that we shall see Zordrak but I hold out hope that I'll see from Frazznats at least. For gameplay, each miniature is accompanied by a collectable character card with artwork from the series, a quote and a profile for using the character in The Dreamstone miniatures and roleplaying games.

The Dreamstone: 30th Anniversary Miniatures Game

The Miniatures Game is a fast-paced game that is simple enough to introduce new gamers to the tabletop. Each player controls a team of 3 or 4 miniatures, the Urpney Elite Squad or the Dream Team. The Urpney Elite Squad's task is simple- steal the Dreamstone and escape with it.

Standing in their way are the guardians of the stone. If the Dream Team can panic the Urpneys sufficiently they'll give it up and run away! The mechanics are easy to pick up, all the characters get two actions per turn an easy action that they automatically succeed and a testing action that has to be rolled for.

Tests are succeeded on a 4+ and depending on the start your character will be rolling either a d4, d6, d8 or d10, with rolls of a 1 being a failure. The board itself is a hex map so line of sight and distances are defined and younger players should have no difficulties in picking it up quickly. The game can be expanded with other characters from the miniature range and additional mats once you start getting into the game to change things up.

The Dreamstone: 30th Anniversary Roleplaying Game

The RPG is for me one of the most interesting things, everyone knows that the baddies are the most interesting characters in any media and in the Dreamstone this was definitely true. Wuts, Wottles and Noops are all very nice and jolly going about their lives with not a care in the world.

But the Urpney's oh the poor Urpney's. Constantly living in fear of ending up in the pit of no return or being turned into stone (and then gravel) at the behest of Zordrak, the conveyor belt of Urpney soldiers being sent forth on missions to capture the Dreamstone was the most fun part of the show and this is where the roleplaying game comes into its own.

The Dreamstone RPG lets players step into the large shoes of the Urpneys and attempt to succeed where all others have failed! Equipped with the latest experimental gadget for Urpgor's laboratories and given a mission to venture deep into enemy territory the elite squad have only their wits, muscle, poise and bravery to rely on.

Each game is effectively a self-contained episode of The Dreamstone. The squad will be briefed on their mission and given their equipment. After that it's down to teamwork or your return to the Black Mountain may result in punishment instead of reward.

The Kickstarter has certainly brought back memories for me and its simply terrific to see them rendered into miniature form for the first time. If you're not a painter Oakbound Studio have even dropped in an option for a cartoony painted version giving you a splash of colour on the tabletop that is more than good enough for gaming pieces, and if you want more than that they have said to contact them and they'll put you in contact with some professional painters, which would make for a fantastic gift.

The Kickstarter is short and hopefully it will get funded quickly and move on to smashing stretch goals so I can get my Frazznats. In the meantime, I am off to binge-watch all of it again, like you kids do with your Netflixes and Hulus...

Why must I always deliver my creations into the hands of halfwits who can hardly remember their own names?