• Randy Rathert's The King's Abbey from Breaking Games takes players back a thousand years in history to a time when monks were dice, and they determined what to do each day by rolling themselves, then being placed on different game boards in order to bring their higher being resources like wood, grain and stone; clergy in need of training; and peasants to do whatever it was that peasants did back then.
• I consider designer Daniel Solis a friend as he's been to my house a few times to play games, we've talked about design and publication, and our tastes seem to align, so I was bummed to miss out on his first appearance at BGG.CON, both to see him show off Kodama: The Tree Spirits (coming from Action Phase Games in Q2 2016) and to actually play more games with him. Ah, well, maybe another time...
For those who don't know, Kodama: The Tree Spirits is a reimplementation of Solis' Kigi, a Zen-spirited game about tree growing that he released through DriveThruCards, and the game has evolved to include new branches for players to explore.