Bruno Cathala Round-up: Hoard Toilet Paper, Climb Mountains, Avoid Hand Zombies, and Dream About Shadows over Brooklyn

Thankfully, news from China are comforting and give us hope: virus has been almost defeated there, and factories are back in their business at full capacity. Cleopatra and the Society of Architects will be ready within a couple of weeks. The problem now are the shipments, as in many countries deliveries are blocked. At the moment no one is able to say when things will go back to normal in order to ensure the delivery of the games. We only can assure you our commitment and ensure that you will have your game as soon as the situation in our country and in the world will permit.

PQltistes contains 55 cards: cards numbered 2-10, with two 2s, three 3s, etc. and 1 police card. Shuffle these cards, then spread them out face down on the table. On your turn, choose a card and turn it face up. You can stop here, collect all the cards you've revealed, and end your turn, or you continue turning cards face up. If you reveal the police card or a card with a number that's already face up, you must gather all face-up cards and three face-down cards from the table, shuffle them, then place them wherever you want on the table. Your turn then ends.

Some cards when revealed give you the ability to peek at a face-down card or swap a card in your collection with a card in someone else's collection.

When five or fewer cards are face down on the table at the end of someone's turn, the game ends. Each card is worth 0-2 rolls of toilet paper as depicted on those cards. Additionally, you score points equal to the number of which you have the most tiles, e.g. if you have four 8s and three or fewer of each other number, you score a bonus of 8 points. In case of a tie for most tiles, you score the lower value.

Whoever has the most rolls wins!

Trek 12 is a roll-and-write alpinism game, with progressive difficulty levels and more. To score points, you have to create chains of consecutive numbers from 0 to 12 and areas of a same number.

A game is composed of 19 rolls of two six-sided dice, with one die having values from 1 to 6, and the other from 0 to 5. After each roll, the player must combine both die values to obtain the number to place. You can:

—Add the values of the two dice
—Subtract the value of one die from the other
—Multiply the value of the two dice
—Keep the higher value of the two dice
—Keep the lower value of the two dice

Be careful as you may choose each of these options at most four times during a game. After placing your first number on the game sheet, you must place each subsequent number in a space adjacent to one already filled. You try to make chains and develop areas. Players also have access to several bonus elements to earn during a game.

At the end of a game, numbers that belong to neither a chain nor an area give you minus points. The same applies if you have to place a number greater than 12...

Trek 12 contains three different sheet pads to add narrative with three progressive difficulty levels.

Summer nights, the woods, and the campfires where it is good to roast marshmallows — what happiness!

Well, almost! Suddenly, out of the bushes, hordes of zombie animals are rushing towards you. Do they want to steal your marshmallows? Not at all! It's your brains they want to cube and roast over the campfire.

Your goal in Brain Camp is to rid yourself of these assailants (i.e., the cards in your hand) as quickly as possible to avoid gradually losing your mind because losing your brain entirely means being transformed into a zombie...and losing the game!

Yes, I know, the abstract game for two players is not popular — and yet it is the quintessence of the game. The quintessence also of game design. No device. You can't hide behind anything. It works...or it doesn't, and when it works this well, yes, it becomes almost magical.

Often, I am asked in an interview what is the game that I prefer among all mine, what is my "best" game. I've always answered with a pirouette, asking the reporter which of his children he preferred. Today my answer will most likely be INSERT. It's most likely not the game that will have the biggest commercial success, but it's what I consider to be "my best game".

The action takes place at the end of the 19th century, in a Brooklyn (or perhaps a London) in which we are the descendants of the Knights of the Round Table in a secret society that hides the Grail in the depths of the city to protect it from the assaults of the super-villains of that time (such as Moriarty, Frankenstein, etc.).

The game is dynamic, and you can always move around and play — no more chances of getting stuck for hours in the same place as before for the grail. We have special steampunk equipment made by M (a descendant of Merlin, a concept James Bond will lift by calling this person Q) which, used in combos, allows for very pleasant effects and puts pep in the game.


During a game, we can sometimes change alignment several times. We have a solo mode and a two-player mode which are super nice (and yet I'm not a fan of solo games).

In short, for us this version is clearly superior to the previous one, and for the people who have tested it around us, too — but our editor is not at all convinced (which is his strictest right). The problem is that we can't go back to a medieval world unless we transform our knights into Round Table magicians, which doesn't really make sense.

I sincerely think that, both on DOW and on our side, we are both distressed and annoyed by this situation. We have been working together for years, we appreciate each other, and we are mutually disappointed. It remains to be found how to continue.