New Game Round-up: Rise from Amino Acids in Bios: Genesis, Flick Others to Death in Catacombs and Castles, & Prepare to Save Andor

New Game Round-up: Rise from Amino Acids in Bios: Genesis, Flick Others to Death in Catacombs and Castles, & Prepare to Save Andor
Board Game: Bios: Genesis
Phil Eklund's Bios: Genesis from Sierra Madre Games has been listed in the BGG database since the start of 2012, but only now does the game have a release date attached to it — October 2016 — along with a final cover that succinctly summarizes the nature of gameplay and drives the point home with the "Molecular Arms Race" tagline. Here's an overview:

Quote:
One to four players start as organic compounds shortly after Earth's formation, represented by up to three Biont tokens. The Amino Acids command Metabolism, the lipids create cells, the pigments control energy absorption and storage, and the nucleic acids control templated replication. Their goal is a double origin of life: first as Autocatalytic Life (a metabolic cycle reproducing, yet not replicating, its own constituents), and the second as Darwinian Life (an Organism using a template to replicate in an RNA world). Players can play cooperative, competitive, or solitaire.

Notes designer Phil Eklund, "This subject is the most difficult and ambitious I have ever attempted, and it has taken many years to get it to work right." With Bios: Genesis, Bios: Megafauna, and Origins: How We Became Human, Eklund takes players through almost the whole breadth and scope of life on Earth.
• Joshua Githens from Czech Games Edition posted an image of the Codenames: Pictures prototype on his Facebook feed recently, and with his permission I present it here. Adds Githens, "I'll have it on the ITTD steam this Saturday", i.e., Saturday, April 30, 2016, which is International TableTop Day.


Board Game: Codenames: Pictures
Non-final prototype


Board Game: Catacombs & Castles
Board Game: Munchkin Sketch Edition
• Canadian publisher Elzra Corp. plans to run a Kickstarter in 2016 for Catacombs and Castles, a standalone game in the Catacombs universe that pits two teams of heroes against one another. The expansion also serves as an expansion for the third edition of Catacombs thanks to the new game board included.

• Clever or crazy? In May 2016, Steve Jackson Games will release Munchkin: Sketch Edition, a art-free special version of the Munchkin base game that allows you to draw your own munchkins on the cards and make the game look exactly like you want, depending on your artistic abilities, of course...

Level 99 Games reports that Millennium Blades is sold out at the publisher level. Says designer/publisher D. Brad Talton, Jr., "We do not have immediate plans for a reprint, so players who want to guarantee their copy of the game should seek it out as soon as possible." Gas on the fire, Brad, gas on the fire!

KOSMOS has released a teaser trailer for Die Legenden von Andor: Die letzte Hoffnung, part three of Michael Menzel's Legends of Andor, which is due out in Q4 2016. Here's a short description from the publisher:

Quote:
On returning from the far north, the heroes find a devastated Andor. Conquered by the Krahder from the south and their skeleton army, many Andori were enslaved and abducted by them. The heroes are the last hope for the kingdom.

Die Legenden von Andor: Die letzte Hoffnung, the last large expansion for Legends of Andor, includes a new map of the southern regions of Andor, new legends, and more.

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