New Game Round-up: Details on Andor, Three New Titles from SJG & Up Front Up for a New Edition?

New Game Round-up: Details on Andor, Three New Titles from SJG & Up Front Up for a New Edition?
 
• Canadian publisher Valley Games has announced a new edition of the long out-of-print Up Front. The note from VG's Rik Falch:

Quote:
Valley Games is very excited to announce that we have been offered the opportunity to produce Up Front. In association with the original designer, Courtney Allen, we will reproduce this classic title with improved and enhanced rules, new artwork and new graphic design. We will use Kickstarter to fund the project with a planned launch date of December 2012. More information to come as we get closer to the launch date.
Of course a new edition of Up Front was in the works with Multi-Man Publishing for years and never came to fruition, with Brian Youse from MMP noting in 2011 that "[W]ith the status of Up Front in the air, that license was not continued. WotC/Hasbro could not estimate when, if ever, they would be able to work through the legal issues surrounding ownership of that game that have prevented us from producing anything for the last five years." We'll see...

From gallery of W Eric Martin
• At Gen Con 2012, U.S. publisher Fantasy Flight Games announced that it would release an English-language edition of Michael Menzel's Legends of Andor, and with that announcement from FFG comes a slightly more detailed description of the game play:

Quote:
Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game for two to four players in which a band of heroes must work together to defend a fantasy realm from invading hordes. To secure Andor's borders, the heroes will embark on dangerous quests over the course of five unique scenarios (as well as a final scenario created by the players themselves). But as the clever game system keeps monsters on the march toward the castle, the players must balance their priorities carefully.

At the heart of Legends of Andor is its unique narrative, the linked scenarios of which tell an overarching story as the players successfully complete objectives. For each scenario, or "Legend", a legend deck conveys the plot of an ever-unfolding tale...one in which the players are the protagonists. A wooden marker moves along the board's legend track at key points during each scenario, triggering the draw of a new legend card, the introduction of new game-altering effects, and the advancement of the story's plot. In the end, the players must endeavor to guide the fate of Andor through their heroic actions, bringing a happy ending to their epic fantasy tale.

Will their heroes roam the land completing quests in the name of glory, or devote themselves to the defense of the realm? Uncover epic tales of glory as you live the Legends of Andor!
Board Game: Noblemen
Noblemen, winner of the 2009 Hippodice game design competition, will be the first published design from Dwight Sullivan, with Pegasus Spiele releasing the title in German and Tasty Minstrel Games picking up the English edition, with both editions of the game due out in October 2012. Here's a brief game description, which doesn't go much beyond the "you're a European doing stuff for the nobility" trope:

Quote:
In 16th century England, the players of Noblemen are leaders of different family clans who want to enlarge and beautify their lands while also gaining prestige and favors from Queen Elizabeth I. As a reward for their efforts, they'll gain higher nobility titles, which brings more advantages to them.
Video Game Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
• As I tweeted during Gen Con 2012, U.S. publisher Steve Jackson Games announced three new items for release in 2013:

-----Chez Guild, which blends the characters from the web series The Guild with the Chez Geek series of card games, with characters trying to collect slack while annoying their roommates and keeping them from achieving their goals.

-----Munchkin Apocalypse: Mars Attacks!, which uses art from the original 1962 Mars Attacks! trading card series in a 15-card booster for Munchkin Apocalypse (or any Munchkin core game).

-----Munchkin Pathfinder, which includes 168 cards, uses the setting of the Pathfinder role-playing game from Paizo Publishing, and can be played as a standalone game or combined with any other core Munchkin game.

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