![Spiel 2015 II: My Village, Porta Nigra, Mombasa, Rome: City of Marble, Face Chase, GobbleStones & Panda Head](https://cf.geekdo-images.com/LJW4o-KMvtdirB9RUcrODQ__thumb/img/79Y1bRYBU0gdETAHH0I9T-PygeU=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic2613941.jpg)
• Designers Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling have worked together on a number of well-regarded designs, including the 2000 Spiel des Jahres winner Torres. The plastic pieces from Torres have now been incorporated into a new large design from the K&K team: Porta Nigra, with eggertspiele and Stronghold Games debuting the design at Spiel 2015.
• Not content to release two involved strategy games at a single con, eggertspiele — in association with U.S. publisher partner R&R Games — released Alexander Pfister's Mombasa. I had previously recorded an overview of Mombasa at Gen Con 2015, but somehow R&R Games' Frank DiLorenzo snuck onto our camera once again to talk about the game.
• Brett Myers' Rome: City of Marble was another title from R&R Games that we previewed at Gen Con 2015, yet still allowed on camera at Spiel. In general, we told publishers to aim for a five-minute presentation for each individual game since (1) we wanted to feature as many games as possible and (2) people tend to watch short videos far more than long ones.
If nothing else, this video at least shows the final look of the rhombus tiles, now in fully playable form!
• A game publisher told me in early 2015 that designer Martin Nedergaard Andersen has licensed close to one hundred game designs in the past couple of years, and after seeing his name on many titles released in 2015 — including the quick-playing, face-matching card game Face Chase from R&R Games — I'm finding that claim easier and easier to believe.
• Stephen Glenn's fantastic abstract game Lumis: Der Pfad des Feuers appeared from KOSMOS in the first half of 2015, and now his GobbleStones has appeared from R&R Games in the second half of the year. This one's still a mystery to me for now...
• Cucumber is a public domain card game in which players try not to take the last trick. Friedemann Friese published his own version of the game — Fünf Gurken — through 2F-Spiele in 2013, and now R&R Games has published a version from Aaron Weissblum and Norman Woods with a few special cards as Panda Head.