Here's a quick overview of TRAILS, which will debut on June 20, 2021 at the U.S. retail chain Target:
As players visit the trail end, the sun sets over the trail. As night falls, trail sites grant more powerful actions, but they won't last forever. When the sun leaves the trail, the last round of play takes place, then the player with the most points from collected badges, photos taken, and bird sightings wins.
You have a canteen that you can drink to move any number of spaces, but no matter what, you must stop at the end of the trail, at which point you can spend resources to collect any of the three available badges (two visible, one in hand), after which you replace those badges. Badges often give you extra resources or actions in addition to points.
As the sun moves across the trail, the tiles flip over to reveal more powerful actions — collect two acorns instead of one, take a photo action for free instead of paying one resource — so the badge collecting tends to escalate. You have an eight-resource hand limit, so you can't always get everything, and other players will get in your way, claiming the badge you were sure was yours.
I'll post a complete overview of TRAILS on Monday, June 14, 2021.
• French publisher Origames and U.S. publisher Renegade Game Studios are partnering for The Hunger, a new Richard Garfield design in which 2-6 players race across the land to feed on humans. No, they're not cannibals because that would be disgusting; instead they are vampires, which somehow makes them cool. I'm not sure how that works, but here we are.
In any case, here's an overview of this September 2021 release:
During the game, players spend "speed" to move their vampires around the map, hunt humans worth victory points, and add new cards to their deck.
The game ends at dawn, after which the surviving player with the most victory points on their cards wins!