• Mayfair Games has announced a U.S. street date of December 1, 2015 for Grand Austria Hotel and Hengist, both of which debuted at Spiel 2015 in early October.
• József Dorsonczky's Six MaKING, which I enthusiastically previewed in 2014, has been picked up by Blue Orange Games for release in 2016. At NY Toy Fair 2015, I had spoken with BOG's Thierry Denoual a bit about future plans, and he had mentioned that the success of Spot it! over the years would possibly allow him to introduce a line of abstract strategy games — something that tends to appeal to a smaller segment of the audience. NY Toy Fair 2016 is still a few months away, so I'll find out more at that time.
• Evil Hat Productions, publisher of The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, has announced that it plans to release The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game in 2016, with Eric B. Vogel designing this game based on the novel series from Jim Butcher. A short description:
• Japon Brand representative Simon Lundström notes that Pegasus Spiele will release a new version of Yuichi Sakashita's card-drafting game Sheep & Thief. One can only hope that the puffball sheep will still be present...
• Can an educational game be fun? Typically the answer is no, but Nathan Morse and nestorgames are testing that theory with Particle Accelerator, a disc-flicking game that challenges you to create stable atoms — starting with hydrogen and working up to neon — one proton, neutron or electron at a time.
Wait! For lithium and beryllium you must add two particles at a time in order to keep the atom stable, which means that you must (accurately!) flick one particle with each hand in order not to become unstable, kick off nuclear fission, and lose. Good luck!