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Turns out that I'll have ten posts by the time I wrap up my coverage of this show, with the final post going live the day that GAMA Expo 2020 opens. Yes, I'm hopping from one show to the next, staying up-to-date with my coverage of these events only because I skipped going to the game show in Cannes, France! (We did have a BGG team at FIJ 2020, however, and game overview videos from that show are being published on our BGG Express YouTube channel.)
With that said, here's more of what I saw inside the Javits Center:
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In mid-February 2020, I posted about three games coming from Belgian publisher Smart Toys and Games, with Cube Duel being both a two-player game and a logic puzzle. You can see the book of logic puzzles on the table, with you being presented with a few starting blocks and challenged to fill in everything else as shown.
For the two-player game, you take turns adding a piece of your color to the display, but you can't have anything sticking out beyond the limit of the plastic holder. Once no one can place any more pieces, whoever has more squares of their color showing wins.
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In the card game Top Spot, as best as I can recall you're trying to collect as many cards as possible. To start a round, a player will play a colored card paired with one or more cards, then the next player can try to top that number by combining more cards. The numbers on a card tell you the minimum and maximum number of spots on that card based on what's depicted and how many holes are available to be filled. I would have liked a more thorough demonstration of this game, but I will confess to thinking that I had it straight until I left the Javits and realized that I didn't. Too many games in too little time...
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In Froggit, you're trying to race your two large and three small frogs across the pond and back first. You can jump others Chinese Checkers-style, and you can land a small frog on a large one to be carried along. The silver fish — not a silverfish, mind you! — is an obstacle, and you can use that to eat an opponent's frog and make it start over.
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We don't list logic puzzles in the BGG database, but I love them and some decade we'll get PuzzleGeek going, so let's throw out a few words about Smart's bread-and-butter releases. Shooting Stars is a logic puzzle in which you're trying to place the pieces so that you match the given image, but the star blocks are weighted in such a way that the star changes color depending on how it's oriented, which means that a solution might not be as obvious as it looks since a color disappears when you stand a block on end.
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IQ Arrows is part of Smart's travel line of IQ games, with 120 puzzles inside a wallet-sized plastic case. The six colors of arrows are on six different pieces, and you need to fit all the pieces in the proper arrangement to solve the puzzle. As you can see on the plastic display, for the easier puzzles you're given a set-up in which particular colored arrows are placed in specific locations, but for the harder puzzles you're given only an array of black-and-white arrows — and sometimes only a few such arrows — then must puzzle out where to place everything.
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Zig Zag Puzzler is another standard Smart Games-type of logic puzzle, with you given the location of a few pieces to start with, then needing to fit everything else in place. The twist is that the base of this puzzle can be flipped to give you either a triangular base upon which you'll build a pyramid or a rectangular base upon which you lay everything as flatly as possible.
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Plug & Play Puzzler includes a white hard-plastic core and many colored soft-plastic pieces that you shove into that core to create a solid cube, with the puzzles giving you the location of one or more pieces to start you off.
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This puzzle didn't have a name listed at NY Toy Fair 2020, and it's not on Smart's website, so consider this a preview for 2021 or perhaps late 2020. This item is as much toy as puzzle, with you building a variety of beanstalks to solve each particular set-up.
To place a piece in the grid, you set it vertically on the topmost horizontal slat, after which it will flip over and fall, then flip over and fall, etc. until it hits the bottom or whatever piece was dropped in that column earlier. You've probably seen gymnast-themed toys like this, and now a young puzzle solver will be able to build beanstalks and reach the giant's castle in a similar manner.
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This nameless puzzle from Smart Games' Raf Peeters challenges you to place cats, dogs, tree, and leash-wielding pet owners into a 4x4 grid following certain restrictions, specifically with no animals being placed horizontally adjacent and no leash being saggy. Those dogs are straining at their leashes to run!
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Glenn Drover of Forbidden Games was busy with people when I snapped these pics, so I'll go with the BGG description of Dungeon Party to let you know what the game is like:
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Dungeon Party is a quick-play fantasy role-playing game played with coasters and a coin.
Dungeon Party is easy to learn, playable in a short time (or extended if that is desirable), has all of the aspects of a classic RPG adventure, and is playable in a bar, restaurant, or at home. The combat mechanism is fun and adds an element of luck and skill without much complexity. The game system is infinitely expandable.
Players will assemble a "dungeon" by creating a stack of coasters that includes rooms, monsters, and treasures. They then adventure through the dungeon by battling through each room, defeating the monsters, and looting the treasure. Along the way, they may pick up magical treasures or spells that can help them in their quest. If they survive the dungeon, the player with the most treasure points wins. If they do not, the dungeon wins.
As for Lizard Wizard, well, I guess that's something to ask about another day. Drover will be BGG's livestream from GAMA Expo, so perhaps we'll learn something then.Dungeon Party is easy to learn, playable in a short time (or extended if that is desirable), has all of the aspects of a classic RPG adventure, and is playable in a bar, restaurant, or at home. The combat mechanism is fun and adds an element of luck and skill without much complexity. The game system is infinitely expandable.
Players will assemble a "dungeon" by creating a stack of coasters that includes rooms, monsters, and treasures. They then adventure through the dungeon by battling through each room, defeating the monsters, and looting the treasure. Along the way, they may pick up magical treasures or spells that can help them in their quest. If they survive the dungeon, the player with the most treasure points wins. If they do not, the dungeon wins.
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Frank DiLorenzo at R&R Games gave me an overview of Pass the Pot, which is seen in the roughest mock-up form possible here. DiLorenzo told me that as late as the Friday before NY Toy Fair — that is, the day before the fair opened — his manufacturer had guaranteed that an advanced production copy would arrive in time for the show, but in the end that copy was not shipped (and possibly not even produced) and the manufacturer's rep was likewise not present. I heard stories along these lines from multiple people, and I imagine that many publishers will have to delay announced titles and promote existing games already in stock due to production delays in China. I'm curious to talk with more people about this situation at GAMA Expo 2020.
As for Pass the Pot, you're trying to win the most chips to win the game. At the start of a round, everyone antes a chip into the pot. The starting player rolls the dice, then gets a free re-roll to set a target, then the player to their left rolls a second set of dice, gets a free re-roll, then buys additional re-rolls if desired by paying more into the pot. If they have a better hand of dice than the starting player, they take the pot and hold it in front of them to show that they're the current leader; if not, then they're out for the round. The dice keep passing and the target to beat keeps increasing until all but one player is out, at which point they win the chips in the pot.
Seems like an ideal R&R Games title given that it mixes playing the odds with playing the players...
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Genius Games had a booth at NY Toy Fair for what I think was the first time, and while I could have checked out Ecosystem — which we'll feature on the livestream from GAMA Expo — instead I was mesmerized by Dr. Livingston's Anatomy Jigsaw Puzzle, which is a new line for the company. The line consists of a set of seven puzzles that when combined form an anatomically-detailed human figure that's ten feet tall.
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Mia London and the Case of the 625 Scoundrels seems to be a deduction game from Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, and Le Scorpion Masqué, and all that I know about the game comes from this image and this description:
Quote:
In Mia London and the Case of the 625 Scoundrels, you must help detective Mia London unmask which one of the 625 notorious scoundrels has committed a mischievous crime. Watch the clues as they are revealed to you because each accessory appears on two cards — except for the one belonging to the scoundrel. Note the missing accessory in your booklet and reconstruct the villain's portrait...
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I saw the tile-laying game Honeycombs from 4 Sisters Games for the first time at NY Toy Fair 2020, but the game is actually from 2016. The rules include three ways to play, with players mostly trying to place tiles so that they match other tiles in order to score points.
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Succulent from J. Alex Kevern and Renegade Game Studios will be hitting some brick-and-mortar stores on April 4 as part of Board Game Expo 2020, which will debut titles ahead of their "regular" release.
In the game, you're placing tiles on the board to collect cuttings, which will let you claim project cards that give you endgame scoring conditions as well as more tiles, with you trying to collect water droplets through ideal tile placement so that you can claim cards for less.
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North Star Games says that Oceans, which has been delivered to most Kickstarter backers, has a March 23, 2020 U.S. street date.
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It's almost time to say goodbye (again) to NY Toy Fair 2020, so let's wave from the second floor of the Javits Center, where you can look down on the seating area outside the always packed Starbucks, this area serving as an office for many companies that don't pay for booths within the Toy Fair itself.
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