Philippe Keyaerts Takes Another Crack at Civilization with Olympos

Philippe Keyaerts scored gold with Small World, a new version of his Vinci that was released by Days of Wonder in 2009 to great acclaim and numerous awards. With Olympos, coming from French publisher Ystari Games, Keyaerts has another go at the simplified civilization game. The playing time for Olympos is only 60-90 minutes for 3-5 players, but says Ystari's Cyril Demaegd, "Even if it's a short game, it's a gamer's game."

Players take actions based on their position on a time track, along the lines of Peter Prinz' Thebes. (Says Demaegd, "This is mainly a coincidence because Philippe designed this game years ago.") By spending time, players take actions, with the choices being expansion or development. Expanding brings new settlers onto the game board, which depicts Greece and Atlantis, which lets you conquer territories and thereby acquire resources.

You Know You Make Me Wanna Link

Feb 03, 2011

Another round-up of links from around the gaming world, most new and some only sorta new as I continue to clear bookmarks from my two-month hiatus:• The nominees for the As d'Or for 2010 –...

War of the Ring and More from NG International

Feb 02, 2011

NG International, which releases games under the Nexus Games and Tenki Games brands, has announced its lineup for 2011, starting with the highly anticipated return of War of the Ring from...

Designer Diary: Creating a Row – Fighting for Your Domain in Principato

Feb 02, 2011

First, there was a mechanism.The core mechanism, the backbone, for almost all types of board games is some kind of action selection mechanism. These days, many board games can be classified as...

Links to Lead into February 2011

Feb 01, 2011

A news summary for the day with lots of links to check out:• Abacusspiele employee Matthias Wagner has posted an Airlines Europe geeklist that records the path of this Alan R. Moon game design...

Move to Victory in a Hop, Jump and Skippity