New Game Round-up: Jonathan Strange, Men in Black and Ghostbusters Come to the Table for a Piece o' Cake

New Game Round-up: Jonathan Strange, Men in Black and Ghostbusters Come to the Table for a Piece o' Cake
Board Game: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Board Game of English Magic
• In June 2019, Osprey Games plans to release Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Board Game of English Magic, an adaptation of the 2004 novel by Susanna Clarke by designers Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello, with art by Ian O'Toole. Here's an overview of the game's setting and what players need to do:

Quote:
After centuries of absence, magic has returned to England, but not all are using it for good...

Take on the role of an aspiring magician and start your journey down the path to greatness. Collect rare books, flit between social engagements, and impress your peers with feats of magic. Be careful to strike a balance between your studies and your status, for the gentleman with the thistle-down hair has plans of his own, and it will take all of your strength to stop him.

In Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Board Game of English Magic, players take on the role of four principle characters from the novel — Jonathan Strange, Mr. Norrell, Miss Redruth, or John Segundus — and travel around England and Europe, attending social engagements and performing feats of magic in the hope of becoming the most celebrated magician of the age.

On their travels they encounter a host of familiar characters, from the jovial Mr. Honeyfoot and beautiful Lady Pole to the extraordinary Stephan Black and the enthusiastic Lord Portishead. All the while, they must build up their magical abilities as the gentleman with the thistle-down hair is weaving his magic in the background and must be stopped for any player to have a chance of claiming victory.
Board Game: Ghostbusters: The Board Game
• To switch gears in our media-to-games coverage, for a few years, Cryptozoic Entertainment was the home of Ghostbusters board games, but Renegade Game Studio has Ghostbusters: The Card Game due out in Q4 2018 and now late 2019 will see Men In Black/Ghostbusters: Ecto-terrestrial Invasion from the unexpected sources of IDW Games, Panda Cult Games, and Ninja Division.

More specifically, IDW Games is the publisher of record, with that company having signed a licensing deal with Sony Pictures Consumer Products for "a series of tabletop games for both Men in Black and Ghostbusters franchises", with the crossover game mentioned above being the only title revealed for now. Here's the short pitch for it:

Quote:
Men In Black/Ghostbuster: Ecto-terrestrial Invasion is a miniatures games that pairs the world's foremost protection teams to take down a threat like they've never faced. The Ghostbusters team includes Peter Venkman, Egon Spangler, Ray Stanz, and Winston Zeddmore, and the MIB team includes Agent J, Agent K, Agent L, and Zed. The game features fast dice-rolling and take-that card play as well as detailed miniatures from Ninja Division.
Panda Cult Games is credited with the game design. The press release notes that "Additional stand-alone games for each franchise are also currently in development and slated for release next year", i.e. in 2019.


Board Game: Ghostbusters x Men in Black: Ecto-terrestrial Invasion


Board Game: Underwater Cities
• U.S. publisher Rio Grande Games has picked up Vladimír Suchý's Underwater Cities, which debuted at SPIEL '18 from Delicious Games, for release in the U.S. and elsewhere in the first half of 2019.

North Star Games has announced a September 2019 release date — and a Gen Con 2019 prerelease date — for Oceans: An Evolution Game, which has been in the works for several years. For more details on this standalone title in NSG's Evolution line, along with watercolor artwork from Catherine Hamilton and an opportunity to sign up as a playtester of the nearly finished design, head to the NSG blog.

Board Game: Piece o' Cake
Board Game: New York Slice
Jeffrey D. Allers' 2006 game Piece o' Cake was transformed from after-dinner filler to a main course meal (sort of) with the release of New York Slice from Bézier Games in 2017, but now Japanese publisher New Games Order will debut a new version of Piece o' Cake at the Tokyo Game Market in November 2018, with new cake imagery to match the tastes of the Japanese public.

For those not familiar with this title, in each round one player lays out the pie tiles at random to form a complete pie, then splits the pie in a number of pieces equal to the number of players. Starting with the player to the splitter's left, each player takes one piece, with the splitter taking whatever's left. When you take a piece, you can keep the individual tiles or eat them to score the whipped cream points on them. At the end of the game, you score for a type of pie only if you have a majority in it, so eat now or forever hold your piece?

Board Game: Piece o' Cake
Board Game: Piece o' Cake

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