Support Mozart, Even in Death, in Lacrimosa, and Find Balance in Bamboo

• Spanish publisher Devir surprised folks at Gen Con 2022 by debuting at the show The Red Cathedral: Contractors, an expansion to 2020's The Red Cathedral by designers Isra C. and Shei S.. The expansion wasn't being demoed, with all the copies being used to create a cathedral of sorts in the publisher's booth, the last of which was purchased when Candice Harris and I happened to be visiting the booth on Saturday afternoon.

• Devir's Matt Hyland told us that the company has picked up the English-language license for several titles from German publisher Schmidt Spiele: Cockroach Poker, Cheating Moth, The Magic Labyrinth, and Mille Fiori, with the deal for the latter title having been first announced at GAMA Expo 2022 in March. These titles should be available in the U.S. in October 2022.

• Also due out that month is Lacrimosa from Gerard Ascensi and Ferran Renalias, with this medium-to-heavy game debuting at SPIEL '22 in early October before a retail release at the end of the month. Here's an overview of this 1-4 player game that Hyland described as a combination of hand management, deck construction, and worker placement:

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is dead. His last conscious action on his deathbed was composing the Lacrimosa movement of his Opus Requiem. You, as one of his sponsors, will meet with the widow in order to participate one last time in the funding of the works of the Austrian genius. Also, you will reminisce and retell all your memories alongside Mozart in order to make sure that she portrays you under the best light when writing her memoirs in order to enter history as Mozart's most important patron.

In Lacrimosa, players take the roles of patrons of the late musician, contributing with their fundings to the composer's works one last time. During the game, you play in two different timelines: the present and the past. In the present, you commission the missing parts of the Requiem from other composers in order to complete it. When developing past events, the game takes place in five epochs in which you contribute by buying new compositions from the composer to sell or exhibit, accompany him on the different journeys through the main courts and theaters in Europe, and gather the resources you need in order to support the musician during his career.

During the game, you play cards from a limited hand that you will improve as the game progresses. These cards can be played either as actions or as resource generators, and players need to optimize their resources and finances in order to support their best version of the story and their relationship with Mozart.

• In Q4 2022, Devir will add two new titles to its small card game line, with Regine from Josep M. Allué and Dani Gómez being a bluffing card game with special powers for 2-4 players in which you try to build the best hand for scoring cards — or possibly just convince others that your hand is best through force of will.

Winter is a two-player game by Maria Blasco Arnandis and Enrique Blasco in which you first freeze the landscape by playing cards to form groups of four snowflakes that you then mark with chips. When you unfreeze, players alternate removing chips and cards, and if you are the last player with chips on the board, you win.

• Finally, we had a peek at two titles due out in March 2023, with Rodrigo Rego's Savernake Forest challenging you to build paths in the forest to help your animal friends build their pantry ahead of winter.

Bamboo from designer Germán P. Millán is set in the world of Silk and Millán's own Bitoku, with players filling their houses with tiles, while trying to keep things in equilibrium despite the restrictions that build in terms of what can be placed where. In some detail, here's an overview of this 2-4 player game that plays in 90-110 minutes:

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In Bamboo, you take the role of families that cultivate bamboo and use the fruits of your labor to take care of your family. In order to do that, players manage the actions (bamboo tokens) available in their personal board and place them in the main board to gather happiness points. Depending on how they place these actions. new actions for future turns will become available for them. The possible actions they can take are:

—Receiving money.
—Collecting food to feed the family at the end of every round.
—Improving their home by buying improvement tiles from the main board and placing them in their personal board.
—Obtaining or executing balance tiles, which award points to players depending on how they placed their improvement tiles.

The game ends after four rounds, and the player who managed to get the most happiness points wins.