Archipelago: War & Peace introduces forty new beautifully- and individually-illustrated evolution cards: twenty character and twenty progress cards. These cards — which can be combined with the base game or used as a complete replacement — are more aggressive, interactive and (sometimes) drastic than the original ones, covering the major themes of war, peace, and trade, among others.
Archipelago: War & Peace will debut at the Festival International des Jeux in Cannes at the end of February 2014, where Boelinger will be demoing the new cards, and be available in Europe on March 14, 2014. Asmodee will distribute this expansion in North America, but I don't know a release date at this time.
• Publisher U.S. Games Systems will release the fifth official title in Mike Fitzgerald's "Mystery Rummy" card game series in 2014, with June being the current anticipated release date.
Mystery Rummy: Escape from Alcatraz started as a entry by Andrew Korson in a "themed rummy" design competition to be judged by Fitzgerald. "Escape from Alcatraz did not win," says Korson, "placing fifth overall, but Mike liked it enough to ask me to collaborate with him, with the intent of creating the next Mystery Rummy game. We worked on it in 2010/2011, resulting in U.S. Games agreeing to publish it." Years later, as sometimes happens with publishers and their plans to focus on this or that segment of their market, the game is finally coming to fruition. Once Fitzgerald finishes editing the rules and final artwork is available, I'll be able to tell you more about the game in its final incarnation.
As for the other Mystery Rummy titles, a representative for U.S. Games told me that it's trying to determine what kind of reprint schedule (one title, two, all of them?) makes sense based upon demand. Once it settles on a schedule, I hope to pass that info along to you.
• Lion Rampant Imports, which distributes the Zoch Verlag line in North America and has published a localized version of Geistesblitz as Ghost Blitz, has announced that it will bring four new-ish Zoch titles to the NA market in 2014: Polterfass, Fuchs & fertig (under the title Fox's Party), Sauschwer (which will presumably have a new name), and a secret title to be revealed only at NY Toy Fair in mid-February 2014. I'm guessing Riff Raff because what else would be worth the suspense and what else would make a bigger splash than that attention-grabber? I'll find out for sure on Sunday, Feb. 16 when I blitz the Javits Center for one day.
• Lion Rampant Imports has also announced a distribution deal for Reiner Knizia's Rondo, released by Schmidt Spiele at the end of 2012, with the game being available to retailers in North America right now.
• Asmodee expects to make Corto, Origin, Concept and The Builders: Middle Ages — all of which debuted in Europe at or around Spiel 2013 in October — available in North America in February 2014. Marc André's Splendor should be available in North America by the end of March 2014.