More Dune, Disney, and Doctor Who for Your Gaming Table

In today's market, every successful media franchise has a game or twelve. Here are a few recently announced titles that will hit the market in the next year or so:

• Gale Force Nine started releasing games based on Doctor Who in 2017 with Andrew Haught's Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks, and in October 2022 that designer-publisher combo will bring out Doctor Who: Nemesis, a 2-4 player game that will put you on the other side of the table, so to speak:

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In Doctor Who: Nemesis, you play one of the Doctor's many adversaries seeking to twist space and time to your own ends.

Your old nemesis, the Doctor, endlessly seeks to thwart your plans. Worse still, his other adversaries have their own schemes, and they don't involve you controlling everything. You must send your minions out to thwart both the Doctor's and your opponents' schemes, while bringing your own to fruition!

• Gale Force Nine is also involved with the second title in this post, albeit only peripherally. CMON has announced that Dune: War for Arrakis will be its its next Kickstarter project following Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City, with the designers being none other than Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello, co-designers of War of the Ring. Here's an excerpt from the game announcement:

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Nepitello, who also serves as CMON's Head of IP and RPG, said, "Dune: War for Arrakis has allowed Marco and me to once again do what we love the most: look at a story in-depth to find the best way to capture its spirit and put it into a game. And we've been able to do it at a grand scale befitting the source material, working with the best developers, artists and producers on the market. We aim to provide an epic experience, while still putting a spotlight on the many individual characters found in the Dune universe."

Here's an overview of what to expect:

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Arrakis is a desert world seemingly dead and barren, yet here lies the most important resource in the galaxy: Spice. Without Spice, space travel is impossible, and humans become little clusters on isolated planets. The noble House that controls Arrakis and the production of Spice wields great power. The Emperor gave Arrakis to House Atreides, but then he conspired to replace them with their old rivals, House Harkonnen. Baron Harkonnen crushed the Atreides in a treasonous attack, and now rules the planet with an iron fist. But Paul and Jessica, heirs to House Atreides, are alive, and are mounting a rebellion with the aid of the formidable Fremen, the mysterious inhabitants of the barren expanses of Arrakis.

Only one House will emerge victorious from the coming struggle, while the other will be lost in the desert sands. It's into this grim reality that players will be thrust in Dune: War for Arrakis.

In this asymmetrical strategy game, players fight for control of the planet, maneuvering troops like the Fremen, the Fedaykin, and the fearsome Sardaukar, while sending Spice harvesters into the deep desert, daring to challenge the great Sandworms. The game features an action dice system with numerous event cards that will enable players to retell the Dune saga differently with each playthrough.

As for the GF9 connection, that publisher has (or shares) the master tabletop gaming license for all things Dune, whether books, films, or TV, and CMON has "obtained the worldwide rights in a sub-license agreement" in order to release this title. CMON posted an interview with Nepitello and producer Thiago Aranha that previewed miniatures, the box, and more elements of gameplay.

• Funko Games is leaning in to its strengths with Disney Kingdomania, a game that will be released in two formats — Super Game Packs and Game Balls — with both being playable on their own or combinable with one another. Here's an overview of the setting and what comes in what:

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Disney Kingdomania takes place inside a make-believe, 8-bit video game that's experiencing glitches that are mixing up the levels. Players must patch the glitches before it's "Game Over" for the characters and their digital game world.

Board Game: Disney Kingdomania: Super Game Pack

Disney Kingdomania: Super Game Pack contains 20 level tiles, a maleficent dragon, three characters from a set of 18 (including Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse, Stitch and Princess Tiana), and two items from a set of 12, such as Aladdin's Magic Carpet and Maleficent's Spinning Wheel. Disney Kingdomania: Game Ball contains 12 level tiles and two characters from a set of 26, including Buzz Lightyear, Mickey Mouse, Stitch, Princess Tiana, and rare "glitched" character figures.

Board Game: Disney Kingdomania: Game Ball

Yep, blind bag packaging with the game itself being playable no matter what you get. I suppose you could put an army of Buzz Lightyears in a game, but I'll leave that situation as a hypothetical since I doubt this will be coming to my table.