New Game Round-up: Pandemic Builds a New Legacy, Kemet Builds New Pyramids & Eggertspiele Builds New Dolmen

New Game Round-up: Pandemic Builds a New Legacy, Kemet Builds New Pyramids & Eggertspiele Builds New Dolmen
From gallery of W Eric Martin
• In May 2014, I posted a brief item about Pandemic Legacy, which had apparently popped up at a few conventions in prototype form. Accused co-designer Matt Leacock noted at the time that "Rob Daviau and I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of this game", but now Z-Man Games has made it official, announcing just enough on Facebook to reach a 10 on the teaseometer without revealing much about the actual game. In short:

Quote:
One year. One team. One hope.

Pandemic Legacy starts what will be one of the worst years in human history. Whether it is the worst year is up to the players, who must band together to save the world. Unlike in Pandemic, actions taken in one game of Pandemic Legacy affect all future games. Characters will change. Some may be lost. Heroes will emerge. And, of course, there are the diseases, which start under control, but soon...

Can you save humanity? Will you be ready for the challenges that await in Pandemic Legacy?
Z-Man further teases with an encrypted faux interview between Leacock and Daviau that requires you to fill in all of the important blanks that would reveal actual information. In addition to being sneaky, such blackouts are probably essential since the game is still being designed with no announcement of when it might be released.

Board Game: Kemet
Kemet: Ta-Seti is an expansion — excuse me, the first expansion — for Jacques Bariot and Guillaume Montiage's Kemet that's due out from Matagot in Q4 2014. The expansion consists of four modules that can be added to the base game individually or in combination. These modules are

Quote:
• A new pyramid color with corresponding power tiles
• A new game phase (dawn)
• The path of the souls
• New ID cards
• I posted an overview of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik's Thornwatch in May 2014 on BGGN, and the latest episode of Penny Arcade TV (season 4, episode 20) is devoted to the game, highlighting its public debut (albeit of the prototype, not the finished game) at PAX East in April 2014.

From gallery of W Eric Martin
• In late June 2014, I noted that eggertspiele plans to crowdfund a new edition of Thomas Odenhoven's Die Dolmengötter via Spieleschmiede. That new edition, Dolmen, features new graphics, a revised player count (2-4 instead of 2-5), and three expansions that change gameplay. An overview of how to play:

Quote:
In the luck-free majority game Dolmen, each player has three druids that he moves across the board. When a druid is moved, he usually leaves a stone behind, and in this way stone circles are eventually created on the board. Each time a player gains the stone majority within such a circle, he places a dolmen with a hidden number (1 to 4) in its center. Over time, stacks of dolmen grow all across the board.

The game ends as soon as any player runs out of dolmen or stones. For each dolmen a player has placed, he scores a number of points that depends on the dolmen's position within its stack as well as the size of the circle surrounding it. The player with the most points wins.
Update, July 3: Note that the player count for Dolmen previously noted was 3-4, but I've received two corrections from people involved with the game's production that state the game is for 2-4 players, so I've changed the info above.

Related

Designer Diary: The Battle at Kemble's Cascade, or Long Live the Shoot 'Em Up!

Designer Diary: The Battle at Kemble's Cascade, or Long Live the Shoot 'Em Up!

Jul 02, 2014

Do you remember the classic arcade shoot 'em up games? R-Type, Uridium, Gradius? Thunder Force III, Kingdom Grand Prix, Battle Squadron, Tyrian? DonPachi?Did you ever hang out in the arcade game...

Origins Game Fair 2014 V: Kickstarter Edition – Paradox, Dead Drop, Phoenix Covenant & Golem Arcana

Origins Game Fair 2014 V: Kickstarter Edition – Paradox, Dead Drop, Phoenix Covenant & Golem Arcana

Jun 30, 2014

• In what's likely a surprise to no one familiar with the modern games market, Origins Game Fair 2014 featured a number of games that will be coming to Kickstarter for funding or that have...

New Game Round-up: Samurai Spirit Heads to Print, 1914: The World at War Sees Print Through HP & Chosŏn Has Rules for Printing

New Game Round-up: Samurai Spirit Heads to Print, 1914: The World at War Sees Print Through HP & Chosŏn Has Rules for Printing

Jun 29, 2014

• Turns out that Antoine Bauza's Samurai Spirit will be published in time for a debut from Funforge at Gen Con 2014 in August — barring, of course, all the things that could go wrong between...

Game Preview: Red, or Riding the Rules Rainbow

Game Preview: Red, or Riding the Rules Rainbow

Jun 28, 2014

Should I post a game preview before the game is even sent to print? No, wait — how about before the game design is even finished?!Sure, why not? As I have stated a number of times, I'm a huge...

New Game Round-up: Vikings in Russia, Traders in India, Publishers in Japan & Zombies Everywhere

New Game Round-up: Vikings in Russia, Traders in India, Publishers in Japan & Zombies Everywhere

Jun 27, 2014

• Designer Joseph Fatula has self-published a number of designs through The Lumenaris Group, Inc., with his most recent release in June 2014 being Vikings on the Volga. The English rulebook...

ads