Restoration Games Brings Unmatched Crossbows and Catapults to Thunder Road

U.S. publisher Restoration Games has given updates for several previously released or announced titles, while also revealing several new titles that you'll see over the next 18-ish months.

To start, the final three heroes from Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two have been revealed following the Yennenga teaser in March 2021. Those three heroes are Achilles, who comes partnered with Patroclus; Sun Wukong, who (if I remember correctly) can be in three places at once and has a wickedly balanced miniature; and Bloody Mary, whose cards and powers relate to the number 3.

This set is designed by Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, Chris Leder, Brian Neff, and Kevin Rodgers, and is due out in Q4 2021.

Board Game: Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two

During a press event, Jacobson, who is president of Restoration Games, noted that the company has been researching a comprehensive Unmatched storage solution, but (1) they haven't found anything yet as this would be more involved than something like a Dominion case that holds only cards and tokens and (2) I imagine that any storage solution sold now would be overflowing before too long given the pace of releases coming from Restoration and Unmatched co-publisher Mondo Games.

• A special edition of Wolfgang Kramer's racing game Downforce will be released in the U.S. retail chain Target in August 2021, with this item being nearly identical to the original Restoration release, apart from production changes such as a thinner box, cards instead of punchboard, and slightly smaller cards to hit a US$35 price point. Oh, and this item will feature six new driver powers, and Restoration currently has no plans to release those powers as a supplemental pack — but the text of those cards will be made public at some point should you want to mock up your own copies.

• Similarly, Target will carry a somewhat streamlined and smaller version of Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar, with this item featuring faster gameplay and being sold under the name Fireball Island: Race to Adventure to differentiate it from the 2018 release. This item is a co-publication with Goliath Games, which in the United States tends to focus on mass-market games. (Expansions for Curse of Vul-Kar will not be compatible with Race to Adventure due to the different island sizes.)

• Mass production has started on Return to Dark Tower, with Jacobson stating that ideally fulfillment will start within 1-2 months, with Asia receiving goods first since it's closest to the manufacturing facilities, but given the current state of shipping from China — with containers being in short supply and often costing 4-5 times their current amount — surprises could still happen.

• Restoration had announced at Gen Con 2019 that it would be "restoring" Key to the Kingdom, a 1990 design from Paul Bennett, and the new design from Ben Rosset and Matthew O'Malley — also titled Key to the Kingdom — is "coming soon", which is publisher speak for "in Poseidon's hands".

Art by Andrew Bosley

Here's an overview of the gameplay and how it compares to the original:

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The new version of Key to the Kingdom features the classic "hole-in-the-board" mechanism to hop through portals and explore the Demon King's domain.

As the kingdom's not-so-mightiest heroes — Pitiless Pixie, Knovice Knight, Unique Unicorn, Merciless Mercenary, and Gnarled Gnome — you'll go on adventures to gather the three pieces of the magic key, then hop through a portal to defeat the Demon King once and for all.

This new version gives players greater control over the whims of the dice. You'll use your collection of items to tweak your rolls. But make sure you have the right item ready when you go on an adventure to give you an easier path through. You'll get magic items and companions along the way as well. It also adds a new endgame in which you need to face a series of mini-challenges to win the game.

• Sid Sackson's 1992 card game Buried Treasure is being brought back to market as Berried Treasure in 2021. Pirates are out, and pie rates are in!

In this quick-playing game, over three rounds 2-5 players take turns drafting from four rows of randomly laid-out cards to collect four types of desserts. You can see all the cards in each row, but only the topmost card of each row can be claimed. However, if you take a "Moar" card, you get to grab an extra card of the same type, if available. If your card has "grabby paws", you steal as many cards as paws from other players' stashes.

Each type of dessert is worth points depending on the score card revealed at the start of a round — but if players have the same number of cards of the same type of dessert, those cards are ignored during scoring. Your cards carry over from one round to the next, but the most valuable dessert changes each round, so a majority now doesn't guarantee lots of points later.

• Jim Keifer's Thunder Road, a 1986 design released by Milton Bradley, is being reborn as Thunder Road Vendetta, with Dave Chalker and Brett Myers leading the design, and Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, and Brian Neff also contributing.

In the press event, Daviau said, "The gameplay has changed from the original, so it's a little more in-depth, a little more advanced, but you are still going to be rolling dice and shooting at each other." In more detail:

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Grab your crew, roll your dice, race your cars, shoot your guns, and try not to get wrecked.

Thunder Road Vendetta features exciting new additions, including random hazard tokens, such as wrecks, oil slicks, and more. Damage isn't merely one and done. Now, you'll draw damage tokens with exciting effects that can send your car careening across the board. You'll also have more choices on your turn, assigning one of your dice to your command board to repair damage, nitro boost, or send out your attack copter to fire away.

Thunder Road Vendetta is scheduled for an October 2021 launch on Kickstarter, and Daviau says that art and sculpting are already in progress and expansions include motorcycles, particular drivers, and more: "You can be on fire." Every child's dream!

Instead of the plain road of the original game, Thunder Road Vendetta will feature mud, ramps, mines, obstacles, fire, a giant bunker in the middle of the road, and more thanks to the double-sided tiles.

• Finally, we have another nostalgia blast in the form of Crossbows and Catapults, a second co-publication from Restoration Games and Goliath Games that will revamp the original 1983 version of Crossbows and Catapults from designers Ray Frigard and Henri Sala, and publisher Lakeside.

Design for this new edition will be led by Stephen Baker (HeroQuest, Battle Masters), and according to the publisher it will feature deeper game play and highly engineered weapons that use rubberband-free, "pinch-to-fire technology to ensure reliable velocity and reward player skill". What's more, "On the defensive side, castles are constructed using more detailed components to allow for larger, more intricate, and more varied structures."

The new Crossbows and Catapults will come to Kickstarter in 2022, with Goliath later making the game available to mass-market stores. Jacobson said that multiple expansions will be created, with all of them being available through the Kickstarter, but later Goliath will distribute some of the expansions via mass market while Restoration will have exclusivity for other expansions via hobby. In general, the "complete" version from Goliath will be more for kids, while the Restoration version will have army building, different victory conditions, and other elements to make the game more challenging.